The vertical glass house, as this object is officially called, was invented by the Chinese architect Yun Ho Chan back in 1991: with this project, the future founder of FCJZ took part in the Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition, organized by Japan Architect magazine, and was awarded a special mention by the jury. More than twenty years later, the project was implemented in the framework of the West Bund Biennale of Architecture and Contemporary Art as one of the permanent pavilions.
This house is a kind of response to the fashion for transparent walls and an extremely conditional border between private housing and the outside world. In fact, the architect turns the house so traditional today with floor-to-ceiling windows 90 degrees - so that the only opening of this volume (not counting the door, of course) turns out to be facing the sky. Moreover, you can see the clouds even from the first tier of this 4-storey building, since all of its floors are also made of glass. The architect himself believes that he has created an ideal place for meditation: neither the events on the street nor the scenes in the windows of neighboring buildings distract the inhabitants of the house from contemplating the sky.
The walls of the house, with a total area of 170 m2, are made of concrete. With the help of formwork from roughly hewn wooden planks, the facades received an expressive rough texture, while on the reverse side the concrete surface was made perfectly flat and smooth. The supporting structure - a metal frame - has become an expressive element of the interior thanks to glass. The transparent ceilings themselves are 7-centimeter tempered glass composite panels, which "fly out" beyond the boundaries of the facade through special slots. These narrow slots destroy the image of the house as a completely blank concrete box, and at night they also illuminate the house from the inside.
Since the building area was only 40 m2, the staircase inside the house was made spiral in order to save space. It connects different functional areas with each other. The house is connected to sewerage and heating and also has air conditioning. It is planned to be used not only as an architectural exhibit, but also as a single hotel room for the participants of the Biennale.
