other projects revitalizes 600-year-old chinese village with culture house proposal

new york-based multidisciplinary studio other projects, proposes the construction of a culture house within 600-year-old gangtou village in rural china. the design imagines a comprehensive layout of cultural, leisure, and educational programs, combined with public spaces of various scales, seeking to reinvent the traditional village as a prime destination for arts, culture, and heritage. 

silhouette of a pot ear style gable reflected through materiality on the side walls
all images courtesy of other projects

the historically significant location includes a series of well-preserved traditional buildings and structures — ancestral temples, ancient bridges, and houses — making it an ‘open-air museum of lingnan architecture’. the proposal by other projects preserves the vernacular characteristics, and introduces a collection of pavilions and canopies to house cultural, leisure, and educational uses, in an attempt to bridge the gap between rural and urban population.

tea house and outdoor tea garden

in order to transition this gap between rural and urban, and allow villagers to display their culture and share their way of life with visitors, it was crucial to distill and safeguard the traditional elements of rural china. drawing from the commonly used dominant typology of the ‘sanheyuan’ along with the embedded cultural and philosophical thinking behind it, the architects extracted the following underpinning characteristics: the installation of pavilions and canopies bound by exterior walls that frame an introverted space, the alternation between indoor and outdoor spaces, the extension of the exterior into the interior, the private-public program organization, and the overall arrangement for expansion.

guesthouse lobby and lounge

respecting the surrounding context, local materials and traditional forms that are commonly found in cantonese villages are selected and reinterpreted in a contemporary manner. in terms of material selection, new structures are constructed in concrete and clad with a grey brick facade, while the canopies, doors, and frames are clad in corten steel that mimics the color of the red bricks and clay roof tiles in neighboring buildings. paying homage to the tradition of the site, the new building is constructed with a pitched roof form, with a silhouette of a pot ear style gable on the side walls. the result is an architecture that is visually contemporary, yet conceptually deeply rooted in historic precedence.

a window from the guesthouse living room frames a view of historic building roofscape

the culture house includes an exhibition hall, tea house, learning center, retail, and guesthouses. the combination of existing traditional buildings and new interventions results in a rich collection of spatial typologies hosting a mix of programs. the amalgamation of cultural, leisure, and educational programs, combined with public spaces of various scales will allow villagers to display their culture and share their way of life with visitors

the public plaza is used for crop sorting during harvest

historic architectural elements from the surroudning region are displayed in the exhibition hall

axonometric

frontal axonometric

satellite plan

ground plan and level 1 plan

sections

diagrams

project info:

name: gangtou culture house
architects: other projects
location: guangzhou, china
area: 2000 sqm (21527 sqft)

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: myrto katsikopoulou | designboom