Office: Atelier Lai | ArchDaily

Nanshan Junning Resort / Atelier LAI

Pilar Caballero — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Nanshan Junning Resort is located in a valley in Central Anhui with a 10-meter elevation difference, featuring a mountain slope, bamboo forest, access road, and seasonal stream. Buildings are arranged along the terrain: linear against the mountain, embracing the bamboo grove, and loosely scattered for public functions near the road. Guided by the concept of "Taming the Water", the mountain stream is slowed and channeled to form terraced cascading water features. A pool-shaped building with a water roof is set at the original pond to create a submerged residence, while a crescent-shaped pool at the stream's source forms a water curtain as the garden's "Water Eye".

Pavilion ∞ / Atelier Lai

Pilar Caballero — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

" Pavilion ∞" is located in a village in the hilly area of western Zhejiang Province. The village sits halfway up the mountain and has good views on all sides when you look far. Most of the houses in the village had been renovated into residential hostels, so a restaurant and reception space were needed. This Pavilion is the first building to be seen when get into the village, it is rebuilt from a native private house. The first floor is adjacent to the road, and serves as the reception area of the village and the kitchen logistics area; while the second floor has a wide view and would be a good spot for a restaurant. The back of the pavilion is close to the bamboo forest and in front of the natural landscape. So how should this architecture be among the natural landscape? It's a question that design is required to answer.

Roof III / Atelier Lai

Yu Xin Li — Sat, 31 Dec 2022 03:00:00 +0000

The roof is the connection between the building and the sky, an important shelter of the space, but also the core element of the building. The formal logic of the roof is influenced by two natural elements, gravity, and rain. Gravity is known as a permanent law of all things, however, rain is known as a natural thing that changes all the time. The resistance to gravity and the dredging of the rain determine the evolution of the roof. With the development of modern materials and mechanics, natural elements are no longer dominant in the form of roofs. The architecture shows an incomparably powerful human result, becoming more and more like a machine. The geometric purity of the form and the sense of the manual operation of the form (cutting, twisting …... ) demonstrate the ambition of modern people. Our philosophy of architecture is not like this. Architecture is not to drive away from nature, but to accept each other in the unity of man and nature: to guide the wildness of nature and to take good care of the vitality of nature.

Ten Walls / Atelier LAI

Collin Chen — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 20:00:00 +0000

Introduction. Situated in the Southern Yangtze area, the project is located in an old street of Qianyuan Town, Deqing City, Zhejiang Province. The old street retains its narrow spatial scale and is accessible only on foot. The site is 10 metres wide and 40 meters long. It was once the foundation of an old house, which has now collapsed, leaving an old wall intact. The site is long and narrow in a north-south direction, with the western side adjacent to the gable of the old residence. A lane about 2 metres wide situates on the eastern side, and the north side is along the old street. The buildings in the old street are mostly whitewashed and tiled with pitched roofs, common in the Southern Yangtze area. The new building needs to be integrated into the figure-ground relationship of the old street but also embraces a new pictorial expression. It attempts to satisfy the dialogue of old memory and to meet the new metabolism.

Bridge Gallery / Atelier Lai

Collin Chen — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A New Bookstore in the Village. Tourism is the engine that drives the revival of rural areas. In addition to bringing in a time-share accommodation business, cultural tourism can enrich the rural diversity and characters. Undoubtedly, a new bookstore will provide both economic and cultural opportunities for rural areas.

Bambow Suspended Flying Bridge / Atelier LAI

罗靖琳 — Thu, 07 Jan 2021 19:00:00 +0000

Here & Now
Two years ago, Atelier LAI constructed a bridge in an old village in Huizhou, named "Suspended Flying Bridge" for it spanning the two ends of the bank and hanging above the river. The material is taken from the local bamboo. The design utilized modern structural knowledge and picturesque conceptions to bring out the resilience of bamboo, showing a tectonic scenario of the countryside. Here and now, the material and the technique are interwoven into an organic and self-contained object.

Yisuo Design Boutique Hostel Mount Mogan / Atelier LAI

罗靖琳 — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 02:00:00 +0000

Mend the hill and set up cubes
The site is located at the foot of a bamboo covered hill. Before the design intervention, the owner has dug out a mountain foot, leveled out a site for building houses, and made enclosure with rock retaining wall.

T Roof Nan Cafe in Taoyuan Village / Atelier LAI

Collin Chen — Fri, 27 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The Opening
Taoyuan Village, which is in Qimen County, Anhui Province, is a typical an-cient Huizhou village. The project is the only coffee shop in the village, locat-ed in a corner. All three sides of the site are blocked by neighbors, with only one gable facing a more spacious triangular open space.

Bambow Bridge / Atelier Lai

Collin Chen — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 21:00:00 +0000

Bridge, in traditional Chinese culture, is a sign full of "emotion" and "will". On one hand, building a bridge in the countryside is a kind of merit or commemoration; on the other hand, "bridge" is a kind of poetic imagination, in the strategy of traditional landscape painting, it is the entrance and starting point of the whole painting. Not only the thing itself, the bridge is an artistic image that can be painted, and building a bridge is a social event that benefits the people.

Cold Pavilion and Warm Pavilion / Atelier Lai

舒岳康 - SHU Yuekang — Tue, 25 Dec 2018 03:00:00 +0000

The Degree of Cold and Warmth
The "cold and warm degree" of an architectural space can be divided into the physical level and the phenomenon level.

Clan Hall X / Atelier Lai

Collin Chen — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 22:00:00 +0000

Located at the entrance of the entire village, this house is the first building in sight when entering this ancient Huizhou village. This tiny sweet piece of architecture was originally used as a small pharmacy store with an area of only 80㎡. In order to receive growing number of tourists, we renovated her into a reception center for the entire village. The design requirements are simple: in order to coordinate with the overall environment, it’s not allowed to be bigger, taller or abrupt. However, she still needs to bear the iconic role of the entire ancient village at the entrance spot.

Qimen Black Tea House / Atelier Lai

罗靖琳 — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 23:00:00 +0000

The envelope of the site
“TaoYuan Village” - The village titled "Taoyuan" is so numerous in China, since Chinese people always have a cultural complex on their hometowns from some fantasy literature, such as "Where the forest ends, where the headwaters is; then the mountain shows", "The houses are dignified just like the extensive flat land", “No matter the aged and the young,everyone is slef-satisfied with joy”. The site of the λ house is located at a "Taoyuan" villages in the town called Shanli which in Qimen, Anhui Province. This "Taoyuan Village", originated a group family surnamed Chen that moved here since the Southern Song Dynasty. The ancestors of this family "see the beauty of the mountains and the waters, deeply loved in this land". This village hidden in the valley between two mountains, full with water sources and farmland hills, it is a gift land for living and multiply. After thousands of years, the pattern of a typical Huizhou village had been formed.

Half House / Atelier Lai

舒岳康 - SHU Yuekang — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 20:00:00 +0000

The site is located in Moganshan, a beautiful mountain with the well-keeping natural ecology, in Zhejiang Province. Originally, the existing building construction in the site is a hundred years old house, the main structure is the rammed earth wall with column-and-tie wooden structure. The design strategy intends to furthest retain the original rammed earth walls and wooden structure, and companied with the new construction of the brick-concrete structure. Finally the new part and the preserved part became a formation of a mutual entanglement, a relationship of be within each other. The architecture itself is no longer just a country house, but altered into a local museum, a time shuttle. The walls are no longer encirclement, the wood is no longer the structure, but the storyteller under the spotlight. All these formations would lead the experimenter to get a dramatic sense of ritual in these daily small-scale spaces.

Deep³ Courtyard / Atelier Lai

尚夕云 — Fri, 27 Jan 2017 21:00:00 +0000

The site of project locates in the region south of Yangtze River, this region is the motherland of Chinese triditional landscape art. The Architect aims to reflect the modern construction technology and living comfort, though this project trying to discuss about how to satisfy the spiritual needs for those Chinese who still really treasured Chinese trditional Cultures of living and abandoning themselves to the nature, to be retired from the noisy world. Therefore, on the existing long and narrow site, architect purposely enlarged the longitudinal scale of circulation, scenic views and even timeline though the strategic transition and composition of spaces, in order to form a spacial pattern of wide depth spaces.The architectural archetype of this project originates from the triditional Chinese architectual pavillion element named "Ting", which normally constructed from wooden beams, this project was constructed from steel structural system, as bending structural system as wooden beams. The huge overhanging roofs extend the boundaries of architecture into the courtyard and gardens. Finally, this project delivered a consequence that a garden house with three different hierarchies of deep depth spaces, deep³ courtyard.