House for Parents

Foshan Institute of Science and Technology

Project idea

This house, designed for my parents, is a residence sited in a junction of the new area and the old one in a village with mountainous surroundings, belonging to the municipality of Zhan Jiang, Guangdong Province, China. There is a pond on the north as the reason for fortune of the village according to local religion. The design takes a shape to try to coordinate with the adjacent buildings and simultaneously respond to the landscape of the pond on the north. This building has been restrained from the attempt of openings on the exterior surface as the usual way for the cause of unstable and chaotic surroundings. The whole building totally appears to be solid on several sides forming a boundary divided inside from outside manifestly, with the exception of the side towards to the pond on the north. Instead, openings have manifested in two small and high courts in the middle of the house decorated with pebbles on the bottom and planted with a tree in one of them, which not only functions as a set for natural ventilation, but also creates a good and appropriate filtration of light into the inside spaces, in which with the viewpoint of the natural priority, such a building also produces a sort of attractive ambience of light in space. And the solution with the enclosure of solid wall is also good to prevent heat radiating into the interior under the tropically meteorological condition at the location. The daily life of parents occurs on the ground floor, including living room, dinning room, kitchen, bedroom and etc.. The second floor consists of bedrooms and public spaces shared by three children who are usually absent to owe their life in other cities.

Project description

1. Strategy
As the project funds are mostly limited, the option must be to take the most common way of local villagers to build a new house nowadays. This house has been fulfilled by all the way of cooperation among architect myself, consultant and surveillant from my family and relatives and contractor by experienced farmers on building construction.
2. Design
This house centers on the two courts in the middle, due to the site locating in a junctional area in tropical and subtropical climate with weather of heat, rain and typhoon. The architectural design minimizes unnecessary windows on the exterior wall and utilizes the chimney effect produced by the two narrow and high courts as a way of ventilation to suck out the extra heat air internal while preventing typhoon by the solid wall external at the same time. The utility of multiply laid pebbles in the courts is beneficial to drainage of raining water.
3. Practice
Building structure takes the system of reinforced concrete skeleton plus brick masonry filling in, commonly used in the local area, in a very low cost. Part of external walls is coated with waterproofed raw concrete as finishing while the main facade retains the brick masonry effect by thickening the origin. The interior walls are finished with wall paint with a layer of lime plaster underneath. The ground and floors are paved with polished raw concrete. Pebbles laid in courts are collected from a local river.

Technical information

Client: My parents
Architect:Xiangjun Huang
Location: Village Da Shan, Zhan Jiang, Guangdong Province, China
Floor Area: 220 m2
Structure System: Reinforced concrete skeleton plus brick masonry
Cost: $36500 USD