Qishe Courtyard House in Beijing by ARCHSTUDIO.

This renovation project is located in a hutong within a core old quarter of Beijing. The small Siheyuan (a typology of traditional Chinese residence) with three courtyards measures 15 meters in length and 42 meters in width.

Before the renovation, the Siheyuan was old and dilapidated. The basic timber beams and some arched door openings were relatively well preserved, while most of the roofs, walls, doors and windows were badly damaged or entirely demolished.

ARCHSTUDIO set themselves two goals for the project – renovating the old and inserting the new. On the one hand, the designers repaired all the building surfaces and reinforced the structure, with a view to replicate the appearance of the traditional Siheyuan. On the other hand, they introduced in new facilities such as a bathroom, a kitchen and a garage, service pipes, and new veranda spaces. The old and the new are integrated into a new whole, to better meet future living demands.

ARCHSTUDIO embedded a central veranda — a basic element of traditional Chinese architecture, into the old Siheyuan to link up the seven separate pitched-roof houses. The veranda functions as a circulation route, reshaping the spatial pattern and layers, providing a playful walking experience with fantastic views across the site.

In the front courtyard, part of the veranda roof was bent down to form a curved wall, behind which functional spaces are housed such as the bathroom, service room, equipment room and so on. The middle courtyard is a public activity space that previously contained three houses. Following the original layout, ARCHSTUDIO set a living room, a tea room, a dining room and a kitchen in this area. The back courtyard is the private space, mainly consisting of two bedrooms, a tea room, and a study. Its original layout is the same as that of the middle courtyard.

The material scheme combines the old and new, with ARCHSTUDIO preserving the textures of traditional materials to retain the marks of time while adding the new to complement and contrast to the old.

Related: Layering Courtyard in Beijing, China by ARCHSTUDIO.

[Images courtesy of ARCHSTUDIO. Photography by Wang Ning & Wu Qingshan.]