Project Location：Dujiangyan City, Sichuan         Building Area：2,016 sqm

Design Period：Jan. 2008    Status: completed   Category: Experimental

Wenzi Courtyard Architecture – Garden in Garden

Many large and small enclosed spaces together with courtyards form a duet of time and space, which is beyond the copy of garden forms and starts an experiment on the co-existence of emotion and scene.

Courtyard is the theme of the architecture design, whose concept is derived from the shape of Chinese characters (口、围、园、 国、因……). In design, the relationship between Chinese characters and buildings of gardens (Han brick, Prince Yi’s Residence, courtyard house of Tang Dynasty discovered in Mogao Grottoes, Dunhuang) are reinterpreted. Traditional Chinese character has a unique quality that is able to reveal time and space in itself. Sky beyond sky; walled city describe the three dimensional image of Chinese characters---- and a walled city with various layers. The concept of garden comes from a little piece of poem on garden building (A path is curved when a path is needed behind a gate, a screen wall is small when a screen wall is needed at the end of a path, a staircase is flat when a staircase is required behind the screen wall…). The important relationships between time and landscaping elements are described in the little poem. In design, we provide various choices to reach a room or place, whether through a narrow corridor or a wide-open garden, to be fast or slow, direct or winding. We create three routes: daily living route, functional route and garden tour route. With a deconstruction of hierarchy of spatial organization, the traditional Chinese architecture is led to a new combination of modern and traditional elements of forms and spirits.