HE-Restaurant / GOA

Curated by Joanna Wong

Architects: goa: GOA
Area: 2230 m²
Year: 2017
Lead Architects: Xiaoxiao Zhang, Weiqi Hu
Project Management: CL3&ZSD
Landscape Design: DAHD
Lighting Design: Lumintech
Interior Design: missing5

Text description provided by the architects. Nanjing Greentown Tao Hua Yuan located at west foot of Tangshan Hill, which belongs to Jiangning District, Nanjing and is the most advanced residential area of the city. The site was originally the site of the KMT officer club in the 1920s, while now known for its superior ecology. HE Restaurant is located at southern part of this residential, right among the original metasequoia forest.

Arrangement
The Architect and owner reached a consensus: to protect the trees, make building a supporting role. Therefore, during the site research phase, the architects located and numbered each big tree that needed to be preserved and measured diameter of them. So the construction site can be delineated on the basis of site conditions, the existing elevation can be sorted out, and the current status can be optimized according to the plan.

“Darning”
In order to resolve the contradiction between the location of trees and the flow of functions in the field, the architects studied the relationship between building boundaries and natural environment interfaces and finally choose a small block decentralized layout, in order to flexibly respond to complex field conditions. On this basis, the constructions carefully "darn" the forest: Some walls opening frame the scene, some courtyards built around the tree, and some eaves are embed by trees.

Constructing
Due to the natural trees cannot be completely consistent with the drawings, the site operation is particularly important. At the same time as civil works, the building materials and structural detail are all determined through multiple rounds of comparison and selection.

The Forests
As the main space, the snack bar use glass wall for a transparent sight view, the reading bar partially overhangs, inserted into the forest, access to three sides of the woods landscape. Restaurant space flows under the guidance of the trees, therefore the building is integrated with the original forests and ‘growing’ together.