Hasta La Ideas

Glass walls and perforated metal screens help to blur the boundaries between inside and outside for this house in Beijing by architecture studio TAOA.

Landscape House is a three-storey family home that faces out over a neighbourhood park and lake.

TAOA, led by architect Tao Lei, designed the building to take full advantage of this view. Instead of solid walls, its facade is primarily made up of overlapping see-through surfaces.

Glass planes span floor to ceiling, creating vast window walls, while white-painted steel panels are punctured by dotted panels, giving occupants a degree of privacy as well as views.

Rooms also wrap around courtyards, creating more opportunities for rooms to face outwards.

“The intention of the architecture is to lead the indoor life to the outdoor, so that the owners can enjoy the beautiful environment better,” said the studio.

“Because of its special position facing away from the community, the architecture is designed as a semi-private and semi-open space.”

The starting point for Landscape House was an existing house that stood on the site. TAOA retained some elements of this structure, but others were replaced in order to create more transparency.

The new building consists of two storeys above ground and one basement floor, organised around two distinct courtyards.

One courtyard is at ground level, while the other reaches down to the basement, to allow as much natural light in as possible.

“The sunken courtyard is designed as a sloping field, which integrates the underground space and the second floor into the continuous and three-dimensional landscape system,” said TAOA.

The majority of living spaces are located on the ground floor, so that they can easily spill out onto the terrace, while the basement mostly contains rooms less suited to being on show, like the laundry room and the children’s playroom.

Three bedrooms are located on the top floor and there is also a guest annex on there ground floor to house grandparents.

The perforated steel surfaces feature on both internal and external surfaces, helping to tie both parts together. Their speckled perforations create unusual reflections across the glazed walls.

These materials might have appeared cold, but wooden floors and furniture help to achieve a sense of warmth.

Other recent house projects completed in China include a converted cement factory in Xiamen and a residence in Yangqing clad in pale green tiles.

Photography is by Tao Lei.

Project credits:

Architecture firm: TAOA
Lead architect: Tao Lei
Design team: Tao Lei, Kang Bozhou, Chen Zhen, Zhao Weixin, Zhou Yumuling
Engineering consultant: Wang Qinghai
Landscape: TAOA
Interior: TAOA
Construction: Team Sheng Changwei

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