Yimeng Cloud House / Greyspace Architecture Design Studio

Curated by 韩双羽 - HAN Shuangyu

Architects: Greyspace Architecture Design Studio
Area: 1233 m²
Year: 2020
Photographs:Sensor Images, Enlong Zhu
MEP Design: Ruiwen Engineering Design (Shanghai)
Construction: Shandong Puzhu Decoration Engineering Co., Ltd.

Text description provided by the architects. Yimeng Cloud House is a boutique hostel with 19 rooms in 2 levels, in a total built area of around 1,233 m². The project site sits in Mount Yimeng, Shandong, about one kilometer away from the entrance of Class 5A Yunmeng Scenic Area, with the only road leading to the scenic area on its south. The peaks of Mount Yumeng are lush and cloudy all year round, while the site is located in a very typical northern village that grows along the road outside the entrance. The project site is around 40 metre long from east to west and 32 metre deep from north to south. The site itself is flat, while the external road is 1.6 metre higher on the west. There was a primary school in the site, abandoned in the process of combining village schools. The new building is designed according to the footprint of the original school building, reserving the original spatial characteristics of interior courtyard and exterior corridor as well as the collage of materials.

Due to the particular geographical location of the project closing to Yunmeng Scenic Area, the designer had a discussion with the investor and the operator at the beginning of the design, defining the design brief as a ‘proposition composition’ - that is, taking ‘cloud’ as the overall imagery, throughout the entire process of architectural and interior design till operation. The imagery of ‘cloud’ can evoke multiple associations, from abstract to concrete, where the designer is to interpret this imagery in the following aspects: wandering spatial structure, blurred boundary, ‘lightness’ and ‘heaviness’ in form, and the representation of materials.

Wandering Spatial Structure
In the building, the layout of interior courtyard forms a shortcut for walking along the interior circle, which is extended multidimensionally by the openings to the four sides and the stairs in them leading to different levels, in all forming an accessible yet endless wandering path in the site. This circulation has connected several spaces at different levels, including the pool at the centre of the courtyard, the patio veranda above the entrance, the lounge terrace on the east, the outdoor restaurant on the north, and the staggered terraces on the roof. This is a series of spaces scattered along a path without predetermination, hopefully to be discovered by the users in their experiences.

Yimeng Cloud House / Greyspace Architecture Design Studio - Interior Photography, Windows — Details. Image © Sensor Images

Blurred Boundary
The squared footprint derived from the contextual analysis of the village and the site forms a regular exterior interface, which then leads to a regular interior boundary. However, in terms of spatial relationship, the design resolves this regularity by breaking up the boundary and dealing with the sections in different directions, eventually forming a blurred spatial boundary. This blurred zone provides more possibilities for spatial diversity.

‘Lightness’ and ‘Heaviness’ in Form
The building volume is divided into the upper and lower parts by a clear horizontal line on the street façade slightly lower than the second floor. Above the line is a white volume of ‘lightness’, while below is a continuous long wall with the entrance as the only opening. The wall is rough in texture and dim in colour, forming the visual ‘heaviness’ in contrast with the white building volume above. This horizontal line is also a response to the slight drop of the external site along the road, to correct the visual deviation of the entrance square due to the height difference.

Yimeng Cloud House / Greyspace Architecture Design Studio - Interior Photography, Facade, Handrail, Beam — Details. Image © Sensor Images

Representation of Material
The building is consisted of two floors. The upper volume is mainly white coated, and the lower supplemented by locally sourced granite and partially decorated with red brick. Along the continuous perceptible walking paths through the interior courtyard and stairs, fine curved perforated aluminum panels are adopted to form a ‘cloud-like’ light quality of the courtyard, which is further enhanced by the sky light reflected by the light blue pool in the courtyard. Randomly placed curved perforated aluminum panels screen some of the public spaces and the entrance to the guest rooms to blur the boundary of the interior courtyard.

The interior design also continues this imagery with a cloud chandelier in the public dining area and a curved wire grid above the chandelier. The wire grid frame is also used as the main structure of the furniture in the guest rooms. In addition to the original wood and white, the interior is partially decorated with Klein blue to extend the boundaries of the 'cloud' imagery.

The design process of Yimeng Cloud House attempts to generate the whole design thinking from a tangible concept, and hopefully the spatial experience generated in this way can respond to the relationship between ‘Site’ and ‘Architecture’, ‘Material’ and ‘Form’, ‘Interior’ and ‘Exterior’.