Contract - January/February 2016 - 112

INTERIORS AWARDS

Restaurant
Arch Studio

Teahouse in Hutong

By Michael Webb
Photography by
Wang Ning

Client
Beijing Shuimoxuan
Cultural Development
Location
Beijing
112

The historic core of Beijing has changed more in the last 60 years
than in the previous six centuries, but enclaves of courtyard houses
(siheyuan) and narrow lanes (hutong) threaded between the high
walls still exist. During the destructive years of Mao, most of the city's
fortifications were torn down, and broad avenues were driven through
the ancient urban fabric-similar to what Baron Haussmann did in 19thcentury Paris. To accommodate a tide of new residents, courtyards
were built over, and the poor were crowded into ramshackle structures.
Now that the capital has become a vast metropolis, there's a growing
respect for historic buildings, in part because so many have been
destroyed. The surviving siheyuan are being restored and upgraded
to serve as commercial premises and costly residences.
Arch Studio, a Beijing firm founded by Han Wen-Qiang in 2010
with a special appreciation of the past, was commissioned to design
the Hutong Teahouse as an interior that is reverent of history. "Old
buildings are part of a city's memory and have a unique aesthetic value,"
Wen-Qiang says. "Instead of pulling them down, we should find ways of
maintaining their value so that old and new coexist."
Located in a quiet residential area of the old city, the teahouse
demonstrates Arch Studio's mastery. Cong Xiao, Zhao Yang, and
Wen-Qiang shared responsibility on the landscaping, interior design,
and architecture for the project.
The client, Beijing Shuimoxuan Cultural Development, which
specializes in the sale of traditional calligraphy and art implements,
asked Wen-Qiang to create four tearooms, a dining room, a kitchen,
offices, and a reception desk within the five existing buildings. The
challenge was to restore three older buildings while rebuilding two
badly decayed structures from the 1980s, then weave them together
to create a continuous flow of space.
From above, the five tiled roofs are clearly separate, but the
rooms below are linked and open onto inner patios of white gravel,
planted with bamboo and enclosed with curvilinear glass walls.
Specialized artisans from Yi County in Hebei Province were
employed to lay the dark clay bricks and roof tiles, using timehonored techniques.

In the old buildings, stripped log columns support open pitched
roofs, and the floors are paved with brick. In the rebuilt spaces, white
self-leveling resin paint was used for the floors, which complement the
white ceilings and walls. Screens of cedar slats add warmth, and the
inner courtyards bring nature indoors.
Tea drinking is an established social ritual in China, and the
five rooms allow groups of friends or families to gather in a convivial
circle to enjoy a level of privacy that is unfamiliar in Western cafes.
The same rooms are used for dinner and sometimes host exhibitions
of traditional arts. The dining chairs are a local variation on
Hans Wegener's Wishbone chair, itself inspired by Ming Dynasty
wooden armchairs.
This client shared the designer's love of craft and was willing to
wait for the job to be done right. As Wen-Qiang recalls, "It took three
years to achieve a high level of design and construction. The site was
too confined to do all [of] the work at once, and the limited budget
required us to plan each step with great care. It was impossible to
understand the complexity of [the] old buildings from drawings, so the
designers had to be on-site to discuss construction methods with the
workers and make timely adjustments."
Xue Bing-Hua, the general manager of the teahouse,
complimented Wen-Qiang, saying, "The designer combined old and
new perfectly; fashion and tradition coexist here. The project creates
a model for the renovation of Beijing hutongs." c

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