Focus on the front of the stage. Image © Hanxiao Liu
- Architects: llLab
- Location: Beigou Village, Huairou, Mutianyu Great Wall, Beijing, China
- Parteners: Hanxiao Liu, Luis Ricardo
- Project Architects: Lihua Mi，Chengfei Liu
- Design Team: Yi Zhang, Shiyi Tang, Wan Huang
- Collaborators: Shanghai Di Cui Landscaping Co., Ltd
- Area: 400.0 m2
- Project Year: 2018
- Photographs: Hanxiao Liu
The new urban interface hides in the old environment. Image © Hanxiao Liu
Text description provided by the architects. Beingsituated inBeigou Village, Huairou, at the foot of the Mutianyu Great Wall, Beijing, such a space, seems to have much broadermeaning than what it is beingcalled.
The old space is presented by the new interface. Image © Hanxiao Liu
A profitable extension of a newlyconstructed village resort, a more proactive and urbanized manner of communication emerged in the village, a sweet integration of originally contrasting life styles, an unprecedented cultural renaissance, a hint of the rural areas of China starting to be sliced apart as how it happened in the cities, or it is merely a space for food?
Space is an understanding of culture. Image © Hanxiao Liu
It is ambiguous as a space that the potential attributes of it may far exceed what it intended to achieve, in the culturally transitional period of a country that itself is uncertain about its own identity and the value of it.
New and old recovery, lights and light like life. Image © Hanxiao Liu
Superficially, this is a place reconstructed and transformed from a farmer’s home kitchen to a restaurant that serves the traditional Beijing hotpot which is one of the most typical representation of the Old-Beijing-Culture, however, the location, the historical background and how the space has been designed and constructed, make any of its given names imprecise, unless being very general.
Design Drawing
At such particular moment, when the pursuit of design becomes increasingly visible which makes China seem to be probably still one of the best places to experiment, the opportunities in the urban areas continue to shrink. The conflict between the booming eagerness to create utopian architecture in China and the dramatically decreasing demand, shifts the possibilities to imagine, from where architects in China are familiar with to where are interestingly considered as places that architects are only emotionally attached to.
Cultural Coexistence Definition Space – The Great Wall Museum. Image © Hanxiao Liu
As a result, all relevant creations which are meant to be the revival of certain types of culture or the sensitive reaction to particular kinds of social movements turn out to be repetitively numb and senseless.
Provide the possibility of display space. Image © Hanxiao Liu
New looking, old lens. Image © Hanxiao Liu
Then what exactly is the place designed for?
It is a place that has been reconstructed and transformed from a farmer’s home kitchen to an Old-Beijing hotpot restaurant, which consists of six types of spatial qualities that accommodate a variety of activities that are possibly not either spiritually or formally capable of being associated.
Each frame is a cultural story. Image © Hanxiao Liu
There is a specific desired program, yet, it will be less numb if it makes people feel reluctant to define.
New and old collisions make the old more charm. Image © Hanxiao Liu