ORDOS 100 #20: Atelier Bow Wow
This villa is located in plot #30 of the ORDOS project.
Architects: Atelier Bow-Wow / Yoshiharu Tsukamoto, Momoyo kaijima, Shun Takagi
Location: Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China
Design year: 2008
Construction year: 2009
Curator: Ai Weiwei, Beijing, China
Client: Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd, Inner Mongolia, China
Constructed Area: 1,000 sqm aprox
‘New type of mixed lifestyle under a forest of arches’
Located in the severe climate of Ordos, the house contains a protected courtyard around which bedrooms and smaller rooms are placed at the perimeter a height of 1 story.
By following traditional methods of residential construction in such climates, a rich and calm interior space and courtyard are created.
5 meters tall concrete arches cover the entire interior space, creating a forest like condition. Within the repetition of the concrete arches, different types of spaces exist that contain varying light conditions, scales and proportions, depending on orientation, adjacencies, and connections between spaces. The intent of such a house is to generate a condition that can support a new type of luxurious mixed-lifestyle living for our generation.
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16 comments »
this is sooo toyo ito
I know. This is the Tama Art University Library moved to mongolia.
It’s a fashion style of design.
Reminds me spacewise of islamic architecture. Despite the obvious references to Toyo Ito or Akihisa Hirata and their use of paper like concrete walls I find this type of architecture much more appropriate than many of the other buildings that have been shown so far…
All the comments on the Ito-esque nature of the space….I guess so. but the fact that there are references…literally…to WESTERN architecture seem to be overlooked. Western (American & European) architects emulate Japanese vernacular countless times with their failed attempts at delicate wood structures with bamboo (or the 2×4 US equivalent) of a ’screen’. I have no problems with the proposed building….in fact find it exponentially more successful than the Ito project. The Ito project (if you look closely) is not benefiting from true arch or vaulting action. it is a mockery of a TRADITIONAL construction method. At least Bow-Wow embraces the physics of the arch and makes no effort to hide its Byzantine influence.
I like it.
i rally like atelier bow wow………but not anymore with this project.
An absolutist space designed around a grid with little concession made to variations in human activity: should we consider this as anything but deadpan modernism?
Ito’s library (he deserves a royalty cut) was a much more nuanced take on the empirical grid, with the arches arrayed on radiating lines and thereby distorting the view through the main space, compressing or opening up perspectives like a fish-eye lens.
Atelier Bow Wow are clearly infinitely better architects when constrained by context.
Bow wow rips Ito off in China! indeed!
What are you people saying then, that whoever does an arch from now on references Ito and not the 3000 years of architecture tradition, east or west!?
Anyway apart from the arches the whole proposal is so vague in how it will actualise ‘to generate a condition that can support a new type of luxurious mixed-lifestyle living for our generation’. No actual interior and no shadows to hide away from the sun in such a harsh environment, very anti-byzantine indeed. Structurally it is not ambitious as the spans are very modest which will in time impact the adaptabillity of the scheme. Bottomline i would definitely not pay for it and not just because of the accidental arches which i actually don`t mind!
That was my first reaction too. But to me the comparison even obvious stops here. This looks like a good job, and i like the intention about the natural like flooding into a cave-like environnement. I guess that should give a nice fresh feeling at least to the eyes during summer.
Daidalos> Maybe because those arches are made to look like cutout crossing panels?
Katsudon, a couple of friendly remarks: i like the intention for openness to the landscape but i don`t see any cave like spaces there. i just think that they did not spend enough time in it to get it to a level of sophistication or …architecture. They are trying to do something with the spacings of the columns as it can be seen in plan but judging from the images at the moment it is not very interesting to me.
This reminding me of islamic / historic architecture of the teen centuries..
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