Xiangyun Town

Inspired by Chinese landscape art, the design uses modern techniques in a small courtyard to express traditional Chinese images of mountains and water. The water in the foreground, the rockery and cascade in the middle ground, and the folded-plane railing on the courtyard wall suggesting distant mountains together form a modern landscape painting, giving the owner a new Chinese courtyard of their own amid the bustle of the city.

Xiangyun Town – Landscape Master Plan

Paving details; a perfectly established axial relationship; creating a spatial sequence.

Existing Condition Analysis

Two doors open staggered, so each needs its own entrance screen. The diagonal facing the pool to the right of the entrance needs to be softened for a comfortable, restful effect.

Circulation Analysis

Three axes interweave, permeate and divide one another; the design must connect the routes into a winding path leading to a secluded destination.

Positioning Analysis

Photographs and Concept of the Landscape Outside the Courtyard

Taishan stone, “Shi Gandang”. The exposed manhole cover at the entrance is covered with small pebbles to form a dry landscape, so that it remains usable and becomes beautiful.

Entrance Detail and Concept

Respect · Entering

Existing Photograph and Bamboo-and-Rock Concept

Entrance screen: an interior view, in homage to Zheng Banqiao.

Site Photograph

Lighting on the Column Reference, and Tree–Wall Relationship Concept

Tree · Rock: the permeation of a single tree. The view of trees beyond the wall and the rockery and plants within form a foreground–middle ground–background relationship, bringing the scene outside the wall in through green links.

Site Photograph 1

Site Photograph 2

Mountain-and-Water Concept and Existing Photograph

Mountain · Water: the visual offset and fusion of glass and the infinity-edge water; a three-dimensional landscape space; the expression of climbing plants in the courtyard; the extension to planting beyond the courtyard; and the spatial link between the courtyard’s mountain and water and the wider landscape.