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Hermit retreat
Pingwu County | Sichuan Province | China
Tradition vs. Modernity
The Hermit retreat has been designed to become a distinguished rural destination in Pingwu County, where Chinese tradition meets modern luxury.
Therefore, the design is strongly inspired in traditional Chinese rural architecture, but with a modern twist. We believe that the mixture of traditional & modern styles is the key for a successful boutique touristic destination in a rural setting. Thus, we have adopted certain traditional features of Chinese rural architecture into our design.
Fish-bone Masterplan vs. Atomized Masterplan
The challenge of this project was designing 1 rural hotel split in 2 different plots. The original position of the existing buildings in Plot 1 and Plot 2 are irregular and atomized.
Therefore, with the aim of sewing both plots together, we use a Fish-bone Scheme, in which the central path in between both plots is the main spine or lane, and from there we can easily reach and access every pavilion through secondary paths.
In order to achieve an efficient Fish-bone Scheme, we re-position all the pavilions nearby the main spine, separating the pavilions in Plot 2 from the neighbor pre-existing constructions on the North part, and proposing new pavilions in Plot 1, also closer to the central path.
The main spine, besides being the main circulation area, turns into a platform with areas for contemplation and social interaction, uniting both plots naturally into one comprehensive joint proposal.
The Elevated Lobby Building
The lobby building has been elevated from the ground level in order to obtain an extra covered, usable, open public space underneath for social interactions among guests. This open common space counts with a BBQ area, and a communal long table for sharing meals or bonfires at night.
Since it’s covered but not closed, its GFA counts as 50%, a good strategy to gain a big common usable area without increasing too much the total GFA of the plot.
The GFA of Happiness
Even though the GFA for the entire project was very limited, we have prioritized comfort, coziness, and happiness over built m2.
In the Plot 1, the brief suggested to use 160m2 as maximum building area, using 100m2 for the Lobby & common areas, and 60m2 in rooms. We completely inverted that formula, dedicating 100m2 to the villas to be able to get 3 villas of 33,3 m2 each + outdoor terrace, while using only 60m2 for the Lobby Building.
In the Plot 2, the brief suggested to use 120m2 as maximum building area, dedicating 100m2 to rooms and just 20m2 to open pavilions.
The Outdoor Areas
Attractive common outdoor areas can be used as selling points by the hotel managers, and ultimately will be what makes a great experience for guests.
Besides the central path as a space for contemplation, with outdoor seating opportunities, we have also created twisted versions of Chinese pavilions, covered spaces fostering social gatherings, playing, resting and fun outdoor experiences.
As outdoor features, we also created a “Gate Element” inspired in Chinese gates placed at the entrances of old towns or neighborhoods, indicating that once trespassing that gate, the nice experience begins.
Credits
PROJECT NAME: Hermit retreat
DESIGN: 100 Architects (Shanghai)
DESIGN TEAM: Marcial Jesús, Javier González, Mónica Páez, Lara Broglio, Keith Gong, Cosima Jiang, Ponyo Zhao, Elena Michelutti, Hayley Huang, Jango Zhang & Yuntong Liu.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT TEAM: Jenny Fan, Nicholas Lv & Eva Jiang.
CLIENT: Fortune Art Magazine (FA财富堂杂志社)
SIZE: 750m2
STATUS: Concept Design
LOCATION: Sichuan (China)
About
Hermit Retreat
The Hermit retreat has been designed to become a distinguished rural destination in Pingwu County, where Chinese tradition meets modern luxury. The design is strongly inspired in traditional Chinese rural architecture, but with a modern twist.
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What is a neighborhood intervention?
This is the medium scale type of interventions that take place in the public realm of a city, related to the altering of a portion of a neighborhood. A type of intervention of such magnitude and notoriety that impacts not only the immediate surrounding urban environment, but rather the urban dynamics of a whole neighborhood, becoming an urban landmark and a local attractor of social interactions in a given neighborhood.
Most of the times, this typology combines several intervention tactics such as Painted Scapes and Grounded Objects, intervening existing urban settings, almost from the lens of Landscape Design, by creating spaces of opportunity for collective leisure, entertainment, play & joy, etc., catalyzing major social interactions across the neighborhood.
The main objective of this typology is to trigger a massive public interest to the place through a strong visual impact, usually of a permanent nature, encouraging the rise of high public affluence and establishing an urban landmark that can cultivate important human dynamics and boost commercial activity.
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