The Alley House

The project is a two-story loft house near Lingjing Hutong, Beijing. The house owner is a young couple. The original house is roughcast, with a pitched roof; and in its interior space, the highest part is 4.3 meters, and its lowest part is 2.6 meters.In the old district, where even an inch of land is valuable, the house with a pitched roof of more than 200 m² is relatively rare. So, the house owners also prefer that there will be more growth possibility in the house so as to make an adequate preparation for the living of multi-generation.When thinking about the construction of the house, we believe that the hutongs and alleys in old Beijing are good construction archetype. In the street and alley there locate all sorts of well-arranged houses. Streets, alleys, and building groups are interdependent. So, we endow this house a new inward-looking urban concept.

Indoor Alley

After we sort out the functions, moving lines, and types, three groups of buildings will be built in the inward-looking space of the house. Each with different topological deformations, forming a rich combination of scenes. This design makes the house look very like a miniature urban street, and also gives the house a certain regional living preference. For example, shuttling through alleys, enjoying the cool under the big tree, sitting on bench and reading books, having three or five friends go up to the house together to uncover tiles, standing on the roof and gazing into the distance, and so on. The living characteristics, neighborhood relationships, internal and external relationships, and place memories of Beijing Hutong have been respectively spatially translated modernly, making the city memories nested into the house, and endowing it with a lifestyle more suitable for contemporary people as well.And the interior space can also be designed as a new modern alley.