LAGO Italian Family Kitchen / Vari Architects

Pilar Caballero — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

1. Intervening Between City and Lake.
By the lake of Yihe Park in northern Chongqing, we transformed a waterfront pavilion into Lago, an Italian country restaurant—using breathable timber and lightweight wave-like metal. Tucked among cedar trees, the restaurant faces a bright lake. Its name comes from the Italian word for "lake." We first imagined it as Thoreau's cabin by Walden Pond—crisp water, deep shade, and winding paths. But Yihe Park is "nature within the city." So the question became: how to bring that Walden-like stillness and clarity into the architectural narrative.

RICHAUS / Vari Architects

Andreas Luco — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 22:00:00 +0000

Nested within the layered folds of this mountain city, RICHAUS inserts itself as a contemporary geometric volume engaged in a dialogue with nature, embedded into the vast, complex terrain of Southwest China. Throughout the design process, Vari Architects persistently explored how to create an interlaced condition between architecture and nature, and among people—essentially, a relationship and an interface—within the context of urban regeneration. Through a new architectural order, we aimed to reinvest significance into an overlooked office building within the urban fabric, transforming it into a public cultural hub that connects culture, community, industry, and commerce—thereby pointing toward a more open, abundant, and continuously evolving community center.

Photographer: Wenqiao Zhu | ArchDaily

LAGO Italian Family Kitchen / Vari Architects

RICHAUS / Vari Architects