Yantai is a seaside city in northern China, on the Shandong Peninsula. Its Laishan County in the past has combined university campuses with light industry enterprises. Now the universities have remained, but the factories have been removed, their workshops and warehouses have been emptied.
MAT Office architects set about transforming three industrial buildings into coliving for youth. They set themselves the task: to make the residential complex a reflection of the spirit of the place - a sunny city by the sea, as well as to give it a recognizable image that is attractive to young people.
The northern facade of the complex faces a street planted with dense rows of trees. They practically hide the structure, so the architects decided to make its main eastern side, overlooking an open green area. The ends of the original industrial buildings were facing there, which are now supplemented by the volume of the vestibule that closes one of the two courtyards between them. The facades on this side are divided into niches with different angles of inclination of the "backdrop", where the play of shadows on a sunny day is emphasized by coloring in yellow and orange.
In the interior, orange, which the authors compare with the impression of orange juice, has become the color of the common areas. During the reconstruction of the northern, three-storey building, corridors were added from the courtyard side, their outer wall is made of glass blocks 200 mm thick, and in the dark, their orange walls make the artificial light pouring out warmer. Such a solution should create a feeling of home and comfort for residents entering the lobby in the evening.
The middle, two-story building (former warehouse), in addition to housing, contains common areas, including a rooftop dining room, kitchen, laundry and gymnasium. The rest of its roof became a terrace.
The complex has 102 studio apartments with five types of layouts. With the help of modular partitions, all studios are divided into three or four successive parts, each with its own color of the walls: an entrance hall with a bathroom, a living area, a bedroom and an office. In the former warehouse, the mezzanine tier made it possible to effectively separate the living space and the bedroom.
Two courtyards and a terrace have received an "organic" landscape design, sometimes just the result of different colors of paving or asphalt. The enclosed courtyard combines white gravel with trees and grass.
