Article source: RSAA

The owner of this project Daniel Wu said, “Ziyu, look at this tallest tree survived in our village. It is beautiful. It should be seen in our house after rebuilt.” So we divided this residual wall into two parts; the middle part was used as a courtyard where we can admire the stars at night and the water from four directions can flow into it. The eaves divided the two ridges in different materials parallel to the mountains. The towering surviving tree and old village were included into our Tongling Recluse.

– Ziyu Zhuang, Memoir of Mountain Household

In today's architectural practice in China, tradition and modernity are interwoven and coexist together, just like this Tongling Recluse. It is located in a remote village in the north of Anhui Province originally a normal folk house in the style of Huizhou and Yanjiang.  Nested on the top of the mountain, this small house was in an extremely bad condition covered by weeds and bushes and uninhabited for over ten years; It has three bays in east-west direction and one bay in south-north direction. Its original roofing and wall were badly damaged.

Image Courtesy © Shengliang Su

• Architects: RSAA
• Project: Tongling Recluse
• Location: Tongling, China
• Photography: Shengliang Su
  
• Principal Architect: Ziyu Zhuang
• Design Team: Zhengdong Qi, Na Li, Jing Li, Xin Zhao, Hongyu Fan, Kunyu Zhu, Jiaxin Wang(Intern)
• Architecture Consultant: Daniel Wu
• Landscape Consultant: Shugen Yang
• Lighting Consultant: Chloe Zhang/GLD
• Construction Team: Anhui Jiangnan Cultural Tourism Group
• Owner Unit: Brain Media
• Floor Area: 160m²
  
• Landscape Area: 600m²

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