ORDOS 100 #29: Lyn Rice Architects

This villa is located in plot #07 of the ORDOS project.

Architects: Lyn Rice Architects
Location: Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China
Architects in Charge: Lyn Rice, principal, with Astrid Lipka, associate principal
Project Architect: Ivan Chabra
Project Designer: Benjamin Cadena
Design Team: Karl-Erik Larson, Steven Chen, Daria Supp
Design year: 2008
Construction year: 2009-2010
Curator: Ai Weiwei, Beijing, China
Client: Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd, Inner Mongolia, China
Constructed Area: 1,000 sqm aprox

LRA is one of a handful of architects from the United States selected by Herzon&DeMeuron to design a 10,000sf villa in China’s Inner Mongolia province as part of acclaimed artist, Ai Weiwei’s 100 Ordos Master Plan. Situated on an arid grassland site, LRA’s Villa 007 will be one of 100 villas designed by 100 invited international architects and organized around a new Ordos cultural center which includes an adjacent museum and artist housing.

Situated on a corner site on the south side of the Ordos 100 development, Villa 007 draws the landscape and light deep into its interior. A traditional three-bay grid running normal to the odd-angled west façade organizes three landscape courtyards that draw the surrounding site into the living areas. Interior programmatic and structural zones are organized by these gardens and by a secondary grid running normal to the remaining facades. The addition/internalization of exterior space expands the program horizontally and creates the low building profile.

Villa 007 challenges the normative practice of consolidating residential programs into separate service, living and sleeping blocks. LRA distributed living spaces on each level, interspersing them with sleeping areas and service areas, and encouraging residents and guests to seek a broader range of experiences within the home. In an unconscious act of domestic migration, the home-owner will meander from space to space, drawn by the scale and material character of specific living spaces that resonate with their mood, as well as with the time of day and time of year. Living Level 1 is an active living environment of pool/exercise zones coupled with a lounge, hot pool and sauna. Living Level 2 distributes large entertaining zones away from the more intimate living, study, and dining areas with sleeping rooms mixed between. Living Level 3 is the owner’s bedroom suite with private lounge adjacent to an exterior rooftop terrace.