多孔之屋丨中国北京丨MAT Office

Architects:MAT Office

Area:600m²

Year:2023

Photographs:Weiqi Jin

Category:Houses

Design Team:Tang Kangshuo, Zhang Miao, Wang Feiyu, He Ningyan, Tong Siyang, Li Xitong, Qin Yunfei

City:Beijing

Country:China

Text description provided by the architects. This is a residence building designed for a multi-generational family. Due to the climate of northern China, this house adopts an introverted design strategy, with a central light well organizing the family space. Exterior windows on different facades, as well as large and small skylights create a soft, pleasant interior light experience. The floor plan is derived from the classic nine-square grid. This basic form contains closely related and independent components, which can well complete the ritual transition from public activity space to private residence. The spatial pattern of the nine-square grid is also very consistent with the Chinese cultural understanding of home and living space.

The center of the nine-square grid is a light atrium, around which functional areas such as the entrance, living room, dining room, kitchen, and stairwell are spread. The corner block rotates toward the crossroad to form a study room that shares the view of the external road. In terms of plane processing, the edges around the center are intensified to form passages and stairs between the double walls, which effectively distinguishes the functional space from the traffic space, and creates a perceptual node of migratory lines and intersections like the corridors in traditional gardens. A series of public space in the house are distinguished with functions by floor height.

The entrance hall, tea room, living room, dining room, study room and other spaces are connected and rising in sequence through a counterclockwise spiral moving line, forming a three-dimensional space flow where each part is independent and has a clear sight with each other. The different floor heights and the separated and rotated shapes in the planes create complex cross-sectional relationships between the interior and exterior of the residential building. In addition to the large and small windows on the façade, the design also forms a "light picker" facing the interior space through several skylights, and these horizontal and vertical openings not only bring in natural light from different directions, but also form a spatial flow within the building.

About the architectural form, the public area in the lower level of the house is a centralized base; while the bedrooms in the upper levels are morphologically independent, so as to create terraces in the sky. At the same time, the bedroom masses rotate alongside the street corner in XY Plane, which also creates an interesting architectural facade, and let the building integrate into the overall environment of the residential block.

The building is designed to create a functional and artistic living space through a nine-square grid layout and elevation changes, as well as a variety of daylighting designs. It not only meets the needs of multi-generational families, but also provides an elegant and comfortable living experience through the use of natural light.

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