Yinmei Design Studio | 63 Floor, Beijing Old House Renovation - Winter Vanju

Located in the suburbs of Beijing, the cottage is the home of the architect. We want the renovated yard to have a piece of the old days and meet the needs of modern living. It should still be a residential courtyard in the village, not a suburban bungalow. It should be an ordinary Chinese country house.
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Pre-Renovation Project
THE NORTH ROOM OF THE KINDERGARTEN WAS BUILT IN THE 80S OF THE FIRST CENTURY. ALTHOUGH THE BUILDING IS OLD, IT IS IN GOOD CONDITION DUE TO THE CONSTANT INHABITATION. WE ONLY REMOVED THE OLD TRANSFORMED DOOR WINDOWS AND ROOF, REVEALING THE ORIGINAL WOODEN POSTS AND BEAMS, AND THE REST OF THEM WERE PRESERVED AND REPAIRED. WE DEMOLISHED THE ORIGINAL COLOURED STEEL HOUSE, REDESIGNED THIS SPACE INTO A KITCHEN AND STORAGE ROOM, AND CONNECTED THE TWO SEPARATED SPACES WITH AN ENTRANCE DOOR, TRANSFERRING THE ORIGINAL OUTDOOR TOILET AND KITCHEN FUNCTIONS INTO THE INTERIOR, SO THAT THE INTERIOR OF THE ROOM FORMS A FULLY CONNECTED SPACE And you don't have to worry about “going out” to the toilet and bathing in winter. Some of the new buildings are designed as simple, square buildings that contrast the old and new in appearance, and connect the past with the present.

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The roofs of old houses are the simplest of northern folk practices. From beams to bars, from beams to beams, from perches to observation boards, we want to preserve and display this traditional structure. Since it is an old house, we hope to recreate a warm northern lark, where daily tea, chat, rest and even have a meal and a drink, is a life experience that a northern country dweller needs. On the side of the wall, we designed a wall of photographs documenting the details of a family's life for more than ten years. It is also another expression of the old days, which encapsulates an old story. We installed a fireplace in the living room, snowflakes blared in winter, the lights in the house swayed, the firewood occasionally chuckled, and at the fireplace we could sit quietly looking out the window, make a cup of tea and read a book. The green smoke from the fireplace has a slight wood flavor and is topped with the blue of the roof, which is the firework gas.

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The original old house entrance is in the main center of the house, which is the usual layout of country buildings. After you enter the living room, it's fine in the summer, but the cold wind will come in as soon as you open the door in winter. So we moved the redesign of the entrance to the junction between the old house and the new building, adding a small space, which is both a battle for wind protection and a transport hub connecting the interior space, while keeping the roof connections on the ceiling of the entrance gate exposed. This is the beginning of the transformation of the new and old. The living room is the core space of the small yard, we keep the ceiling wooden structure down, and the windows open to the yard, with both good lighting and a very direct interaction with the yard. The cat in the house is 14 years old, an old cat with no legs and legs. The height of the window sill is already inaccessible to him, so we leave a viewing window under the window, so that he can easily sit by the window to watch the seasons of the nursery.

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A layer of stickers from different eras, a custom of early country decor, is a testament to the taste of life in the old houses. We have kept them clean and these old sunflower patterns will continue to decorate the new yard today.
The toilet and kitchen of the former courtyard are located outside the main house, in a small western room. We have adapted both functions to other locations and transformed the small western room into the entrance room of the nursery. We kept its original simple wooden beam structure, re-suspended the grass mat on the ceiling, and bike parking on weekdays, and the parallel-designed film walls also give the nursery even more privacy. We planted a pomegranate tree and a maple tree in the yard, so we need to cover it with protection in the winter. Next spring, because it will be cool and cool, you can also eat and relax in the yard. There is also no taste in the small yard in winter. When it snows, the sound of snow falling is clearly audible, and the courtyard is quiet as if time is slowing down.
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The appearance of the kitchen is a simple box shape, with a marked difference in time from the old house, but we still chose to use log structures as the internal structure of the building roof, in order to form a continuous dialogue with the traditional wooden roof structure of the old house. There is also a gentle transition in the new and old, not to create a dialogue with the traditional wooden roof structure of the old house. Instead of contrasting, the products of different eras are presented side by side. Today, many families no longer cook at home for three meals a day, nor do they always fry at the time of cooking. This is the case in our kindergarten. Although the kitchen is still very high, the focus is more on interaction during cooking. Busy owners in the kitchen also want to keep up with their friends at the table. Friends talk and chat. In combination with everyday habits, we made the kitchen with a limited area open and integrated with the restaurant, so that the space appears more open and the interaction between people is more direct and the interaction between people is more direct.
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The old house has a total span of six rooms, and we set one of them as a toilet, which is more spacious and has separate windows, while also satisfying the owner's desire to have a walk-in bathtub. The bathroom's exterior window design leaves a small patio, which is the gap between the old and new buildings, a breathing space between the old and new rooms, and a small nursery dedicated to the bathroom. While bathing, you can't see far, but you can see the sky, and at certain times there will be a splash of sunshine. During the design and construction process, in order to restore the traditional characteristics of the old house, we have worked on a lot of detail, and many of the preserved architectural relationships were actually repaired during the construction process. Pure preservation is difficult and practical, but we also need to maintain the appearance of an old house in order to form a sense of replacement for the space experience. For example, the texture of the walls of the walls, we can't really apply yellow clay to the walls, or we can't really re-hammer each wall with a tamping process, so the whole house may have to be demolished and rebuilt. A series of process practices were gradually phased out after repeated discussion and contention, and in the end we decided to try it out with a specific ratio of colored cement mortar, which, after a period of comparison experiments, finally achieved the ideal result.

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Project Information
Project Name: Winter Home
Category: Old House Yard Remodeling
Project Address: Beijing, China
Design time: August 2023 ~ September
Construction time: September~December 2023
Area: 210 sqm
Renovation cost: 35 million yuan
Design Team: Linmi Design Studio
ORIGINAL DESIGN: ZHAO YANG
Design team members: Ma Tung, Duan Ling, Ren Fai, Liu Zhao
Joint Design Team: Small Building Design Team
Soft Design Team: Ling & Bok Yao Spatial Design Studio
Construction Team: Ocean Studio
Photo copyright: Yinmi Design Studio
Client: Zhao Yang, Ma Tung
Main Material: Red Brick, Wood, Cement
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