On-site Design: Reconstruction of Longwu Tea Village

On-site Design: Reconstruction of Longwu Tea Village

1、The overall renovation of the village

Longwu Tea Village, located in the southwest suburb of Hangzhou, is a village that grows longjing tea. This project was led by landscape architects, including road reconstruction, building facade renovation and public art, etc. We adopted the on-site design method to advance the work. Because on the one hand, the ownership of land in rural areas in China is complex, leading to changing the construction frequently for dealing with emergencies; on the other hand, we would get inspiration on the site and draw sketches to guide the construction.

2、Design of the village entrance square

In Longwu Village, there was a legend that once a loong hit the cliffs to fetch water to help people in a drought year,then the villagers named the village longwu , which means loong Valley ,in order to commemorate this kind and caring loong .We hoped to express it in the landscape. Standing at the entrance, the distant mountains and tea garden inspired us with classical painting “Spectacular Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers Handscroll” painted by Song dynasty painter Mi Youren. We abstracted the mountains in the painting into the landscape walls so that mountains behind visually stretched for miles and the space of square was encircled.

At the same time, we used parametric language to embody the “loong Culture”. Like the backbone of loongs, the landscape walls were undulating, or as bridges, or as platforms, or as moon gates, attracting people to enjoy the green tea fields and hazy mountains.

On the whole, this is a multi-disciplinary collaborative work led by landscape architects. We explored to set an effective cooperation mechanism in the project. Moreover, we got inspiration from the scene,used contemporary design language and natural materials to inherit the artistic conception of classical Chinese landscape painting and reflected the regional culture.