Hu. 42

Located right next to Shanghai Century Park, Hu. 42 is a residential renovation project in the high-end villa compound Jiujiangtang, a compound housing area famous for its style of mixing traditional high-standard Chinese courtyard with a simple but modern aesthetic. However, after passing on to several house owners, the site of Hu. 42 is greatly damaged and no longer a comfortable housing. Before the renovation, the site comes with a few problems. Known for its traditional Chinese architectural design, Jiujiangtang separates each private villa with high-rise white walls to recreate a traditional Chinese courtyard style. However, located in the subtropical monsoon climate, summertime Shanghai is exposed to great heat while freezing cold in winter due to its humid conditions. The house orientation and design are not fit for Shanghai’s climate conditions and sun exposure routine, making it extremely hot in summer and creating harsh northern wind in winter. What’s more, due to each owner’s own need, the construction site has been pretty much reconstructed from its original design, adding a basement, and expanding the architecture, to name a few. However, those reconstruction designs are often unorganized and separated, making the living conditions even worse. When we accept this renovation project, we make good use of Jiujiangtang’s beautiful Shanghainese bamboo and flowing stream landscape design. The new design architecture setbacks more from the neighboring high white wall to enlarge the gap between architecture, using deciduous trees in the courtyard to reduce the suppressive pressure as if merging in the surrounding environment and presenting the beauty of each season. We rearrange the overall space design to match the client’s need for a large family. The added basement space is redesigned to connect with the upper levels, extending the surrounding scenery into the household and uniting the elevation with a traditional Chinese patio design. The patio design and floor-to-ceiling windows not only improve circulation and ventilation by bringing out the hot air from the top and lowering the temperature with the cold and fresh air around but also lighting up the entire space with natural light. We choose local, natural raw materials and clay bricks for construction, lowering the humidity to insulate the cold air but ensuring enough circulation. Those natural materials are applied both in the construction and interior design to form a color unity. Using only water paint for insulation to protect the environment. What’s more, those earth-color tone materials are designed in a way that merges the traditional Chinese architecture style perfectly with a modern touch. As courtyards are one of the most important features that represent the Chinese value between humans and nature, we design Hu. 42 as in a modern Chinese courtyard house style that helps one find their inner peace with the environment.