The project emerged from the conversion of street-facing retail units within a residential community into a teahouse. The landscape was required to create two approach routes and three distinct courtyard spaces: a reception courtyard, a VIP tea courtyard, and a contemplative garden.
The site sits at a street corner and takes the form of a long, narrow strip. Measuring 20 meters in depth and 55 meters in frontage, it is extremely compact and spatially constrained.
Tea drinking is a long-standing Chinese tradition. In Southwest China in particular, traditional teahouses have historically served as lively civic interiors where people drink tea, talk, play cards, and gather around mahjong tables. They are social, noisy, and deeply rooted in everyday street life.
A new generation of teahouses, however, has absorbed both the Japanese notion of “Zen and tea as one” and the social function of Western cafés. These spaces increasingly accommodate conversation, gatherings with friends, and even mobile work. Their atmosphere is quieter and more inward-looking, placing greater emphasis on mental ease, comfort, and emotional restoration.
Project Challenges and Design Strategies
I. Ecological Challenges
Challenges
In response to Chongqing’s intensely hot climate, how could the design lower ambient temperature through low-cost means, reduce air-conditioning use and energy consumption, and lessen environmental impact?
How could the operating cost of the water system be reduced through ecological methods?
Ecological Strategies
1.1 A water wall is placed directly opposite the entry view in the reception area. The flowing water helps cool the microclimate while generating a soft water soundscape that eases the irritability often associated with summer heat.
1.2 A shallow reflective water surface and misting system are introduced within the contemplative garden. Together, they provide physical cooling and help reduce the operating hours of indoor air-conditioning.
2.1 Rainwater collectors, sand filtration units, planted filtration basins, and aeration through the reception hall’s water wall are integrated into the project, minimizing the need for supplementary water input.
II. Spatial Challenges
Challenges
How could the design create a sense of expansiveness within such a small site and reduce the feeling of spatial compression?
How could it shield the courtyard from intrusive views of the surrounding aging neighborhood?
Spatial Strategies
1.1 Before reaching the reception hall, the entrance route is made deliberately winding and indirect. By extending the walking experience through the outer garden, the design helps visitors gradually leave behind the noise of the old city.
1.2 After entering the reception hall, the circulation draws inspiration from the spatial organization of the Master of the Nets Garden in Suzhou, a UNESCO World Heritage classical garden. A looping route links the three courtyards, while the path condition continually shifts—crossing small bridges, stepping over stone slabs, and moving through alternating compressed and open spaces. This creates a rhythmic sequence of spatial release and enclosure.
1.3 The three courtyards divide the 55-meter-long site into a series of smaller spatial episodes, relieving the pressure of its elongated form. Vertical slit windows are inserted into tall walls, allowing the courtyards to visually penetrate one another and borrow views across spaces.
2.1 Tall perimeter walls and a fully covered corridor system direct the gaze inward toward the courtyards. Based on view analysis, trees are strategically planted at spatial corners to screen undesirable external elements.
2.2 Existing municipal street trees are also incorporated as borrowed landscape elements, helping filter unfavorable outward views from the teahouse.
III. Cultural Challenges
Challenges
How could the design express the teahouse name, Lan Garden, and its orchid theme?
How could it cultivate a quiet atmosphere in which tea drinkers may sense a meditative, Zen-like state?
Cultural Strategies
1.1 The north and south walls of the reception courtyard introduce orchid imagery to articulate the identity of Lan Garden. On the north wall, an engraved orchid motif combines with ground-level stone slabs and planting to form a composition reminiscent of an ink orchid painting. On the south wall, a crape myrtle tree emerges from behind a sheet-like water wall, subtly evoking the poetic image of orchids growing in a secluded valley.
1.2 The overall atmosphere is conceived as ethereal and refined, echoing the orchid’s traditional association in Chinese culture with purity, restraint, and an untainted spirit.
2.1 Each courtyard contains a specimen tree as a visual focal point. Their pronounced seasonal changes invite reflection on the passage of time. Each species also carries its own cultural symbolism, aligned with Eastern aesthetic sensibilities, while their distinct fragrances help calm the mind and settle the body.
2.2 All hardscape materials are composed in gray tones. This palette is soft and neutral, and it captures light and shadow especially well. As light shifts across the surfaces, the space gains depth, stillness, and emotional richness.
2.3 Bamboo is mass-planted along the eastern main access route. Its form, the sound of its leaves moving in the wind, and its cultural reputation as one of the “Four Gentlemen” in Chinese literati tradition all help visitors more quickly disengage from the noise of the city.
2.4 The reception hall is broad and low-ceilinged, intended to evoke the feeling of entering a cave-like retreat. As the electric sliding doors open slowly from outside to inside, subdued light, the sound of flowing water, and a soft veil of moisture immediately transport visitors into a hidden realm distinct from the surrounding city.
2.5 In the contemplative garden, a dark pool floor allows the water to mirror the surrounding landscape, enhancing the courtyard’s sense of emptiness and quiet suspension. A circular island creates an additional place for conversation while also becoming an object of contemplation for those nearby—an embodied image of meditative daily life. From the teahouse, a small bridge, a covered corridor, and a wall composition depicting falling flowers through the four seasons further draw visitors into the restrained, detached state of mind long cherished by Chinese literati.
