A complex of small residential buildings with a total area of 11 800 m2 located in the west of Hangzhou city in the Sisi National Wetland Park. Occupying an area of almost 60 km2, the park is famous not only for its carefully formed and protected swampy landscape, but also for monuments of culture, history, architecture (including modern). At the junction of almost wild nature, free surface of water, man-made objects and ideas formed over the centuries about the place and role of man in this unusual environment, David Chipperfield created his project. The work was carried out in the Berlin and Shanghai offices of the bureau.
In keeping with the overall theme of the park, the 20 two-storey buildings are completely surrounded by a water garden. The layout of the entire complex is nevertheless quite regular: the houses are connected by a complex H-shaped system of passages with small private areas at intersections and interesting viewpoints. Moreover, there is even underground parking underneath.
The houses themselves are rectangular parallelepipeds with full-height vertical windows. They are installed on the foundations of gray stone, which are popular in these places. Continuing the theme, the architects chose elongated rectangular slabs of natural stone as a facade material, but not monochromatic, but in various shades of gray. The result is a living, like a man-made surface. But gloomy, too correct in their geometry, volumes are still rigidly opposed to the surrounding greenery. In interior decoration, architects, on the contrary, preferred white, glossy surfaces in order to fill the interiors with light as much as possible. And, of course, panoramic windows allow you to actively "empathize" with the natural landscape. In general, it is unlikely that life will seem "tinny" to the inhabitants of houses, like everyone's favorite water.
