Breathe with the city-Doko Beijing in China by HOUSE FICTION

Article source: HOUSE FICTION

Background-“Trouble at home”

As House Fiction studio was designing this restaurant’ s Chengdu branch “Talk to the red wall- Doko Chengdu”. An aggressive urban renovating campaign in Beijing city has started，storefronts in the ground level of residential buildings have to be bricked up. It causes this dessert restaurant which organically grew from a residential building of Sanlitun, need to move to current site in urgent.

South elevation, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

• Architects: HOUSE FICTION
• Project: Breathe with the city-Doko Beijing
• Location: Electromechanical institute courtyard, South Sanlitun , Chaoyang District, Beijing, China
• Photography: Tian Fangfang
• Building Area: 140 ㎡
• Design and Construction Phase: April-August 2017

South elevation daytime, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

Migrats with the memory of the original store, and build connection with Chengdu store by certain same language, these two points became basic design elements of new Beijing store.

This new site is a two-storey steel frame building which attached to an old office building of Electromechanical institute (originated from the Beijing primary industrial school in 1907). The building covered with red brick is long and narrow. The existing quantity and form of doors and windows can’t meet requirement of restaurant use. Together with design task of retaining the impression of red brick and make good use of the roof, the building renovation needs to be more cautious.

South elevation smog night, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

East elevation, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

Reborn space

Entering the interior space, the longitudinal line of sight and circulation are solved by inserting two volumes from rooftop. One is atrium to lead the line of sight to the sky; the other is the staircase to guide people go up to the roof terrace. Thus, an installation space and coloured  circulation route which unified with Chengdu store are generated.

On the way to the 1st floor,  people would see the wall of old office building. A transparent glass wall was set besides staircase to protect the old walls, also the space in between could place artwork.

Entrance night, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

Exterior night, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

Steel structure stair also chooses coral red colour to spray, assume the task that builds connection with Chengdu store. It at the same time highlights the importance of circulation for small space.

Through the glass bricks which replace part of the red brick, natural light in fragments go to the wall, the ground, the ceiling, stairs, glass, dessert, body, hand…

The moving luminous spots as evidence of flowing time, become the most important decoration for  interior space. When lighting system switched on at night, the indoor atmosphere would influence by different scenes and music.

1F General view, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

Old facade+space+new facade, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

A quiet terrace

A triangular exit leads people to rooftop. The high bamboo in the outer circle of the platform brings guests privacy. And the terrace can avoid the visual and auditory interference from the traffic flow nearby.

The custom-made steel seat is a combination of table， chair ，handrail and planting groove. It saves limited area of rooftop and allows guests who are alone or few people together have appropriate choices.

The atrium area is covered with transparent glass and even with the floor,  the indoor activity can be seen through the installation.

Installation space, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

1F Seats, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

The  breathing façade

To response to the window-display-like of the demolished original storefront, the ground floor of new store combines different functions (entrance, drink bar, seat) to set up bay windows with different forms, so as to bring more natural light and foreyard landscape while reasonably expanding the interior area.

On the first floor part,  customised glass brick replaced part of red bricks. At the same time glass bricks moved 2cm toward interior, then RGB LED source points were able to install besides each piece of glass brick. Lighting controller can hence adjust colour, brightness and even animation of facade. So the skin of the building can “breathe” visually, interaction with air, music and scene.

Chef table and skylights, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

GF seats, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

Interaction:

1. The PM2.5 monitor on the roof is connected to the lighting controller. The change of light from white to red represents the change of smog index from low to high, which

an interactive relationship with the environment，thereby reminds pedestrians environmental quality.

2. The lighting controller is connected to the music player too. So lighting could change fol-lowed by rhythm of music, thereby to make music visible and multi-dimensional.

3. By designing lighting program, lighting colour, brightness, intensity and other parameters can be adjusted according to different scenarios (four seasons, weather, festivals). So that the restaurant produces the corresponding unique atmosphere.

Suggested spelling, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

Partial space, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

The restaurant is concerned about the city where it is located. In recent years, Beijing became the most struggle city from smog. In “breathe with Beijing” mode, the lighting attached with glass bricks on the facade of the building will turn on and off every 6 seconds, simulating the slow breathing cycle of people. When PM2.5 and AQI value is between 0 and 300, the” breathing light” gradually changes from white to coral red. When the value is greater than 300, the light turns red sharply. In Beijing busy downtown, the facade gives the hint of air quality, as a gentle warning for the environment where we are living in.

Hopscotch foreyard

The open courtyard is used as a buffer to enter the interior space. replacing part of the floor tiles with frosted glass bricks of the same size as the surrounding floor tiles, and complemented by lights, to establish the relationship between the Electromechanical courtyard and the building. Unexpectedly, there are children play Hopscotch here.

Go to 1F, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

Go to rooftop, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

Rooftop staircase and seats, Image Courtesy © Tian Fangfang

Sanlitun renovate wall demolition and hole digging, Image Courtesy © HOUSE FICTION

First floor plan, Image Courtesy © HOUSE FICTION

Ground floor plan, Image Courtesy © HOUSE FICTION

Second floor plan, Image Courtesy © HOUSE FICTION

Wall Illustration, Image Courtesy © HOUSE FICTION

Elevation, Image Courtesy © HOUSE FICTION

Section, Image Courtesy © HOUSE FICTION

Conceptual Diagram, Image Courtesy © HOUSE FICTION

Tags: Beijing, China

Categories: Bar, Renovation, Restaurant

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2019 at 6:38 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.