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The Riverside Mansion
By : W.DESIGN, Ben Wu
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 16th edition
Discipline : Interior Design : Grand Winner
Categories : Residence / Residential Space > 5,400 sq.ft. (> 500 sq.m.) : Gold Certification
The Riverside Mansion
With globalization and urbanization and the lingering impact of the pandemic, we need to address the relationship between people and cities, people and nature, and people and people.
Aldo Rossi proposes that ‘the city embodies the collective memory of its people.’ The appearance of a city is determined by people’s residence, their sense of belonging, emotional memory, and outlook on the space. We started a dialogue between history and the future while redefining the lifestyle of contemporary urban elites and future spatial aesthetics.
What exactly is the ‘ideal home’? The answer is in our design language of Modern Orientalism.
BOUNDARY REDEFINED
We have always tried to make the space more poetic and imaginative. We prioritize men’s spatial experience to space function.
For the East Suite, we adopt a more modern geometric framework to reconstruct the spatial order and dissolve the boundary between the interior and nature, to portray a more diversified and pioneering contemporary world and an oriental poetic lifestyle.
We take the modernist spatial order as the benchmark and treat the space as an uncut stone. In the spirit of ancient gardening, we place arcades, bridges, steps, and metal construction to define and reconstruct the space.
The jade-like green marble pieces and the black metal frame fuse the oriental and the modern, creating a straight and exquisite look in the space.
After reconstruction, the dining room, the parlor, and the auxiliary lounge become the center of the space. The auxiliary lounge is behind the main cylinder construction, which enriches spatial layers and creates a delight in life.
Free from traditional ideology, we have created the positive and negative poles of space and introduced the concept and oriental gardens. The space is reorganized, integrating public and private, dynamic and static features, forming a miniature universe of movement.
Beyond the orderly oval space, we have built two indoor courtyards of dreamlike oriental beauty, as if we are in nature.
The rising steps form variations in microtopography, guiding people through the corridor and making entering the private domain ceremonial. As we gradually progress, the trees vary in imagination and reality, and the path meanders.
Leaving the public area, we reach the climax which is the arc-shaped “theater”. The classical and religious white archway leads to a purer space, where a calm rhythm awakens our inner strength.
Passing through the corridor, we face an exquisite private bar. It is relaxing and romantic to enjoy a drink and talk or overlook the scenery.
Our imagination of space depends on visual stimulation. We dismantled the space and implanted bedding, checkroom, bathroom, study, and fireplace into the carved stone. Only by breaking the inherent layout, it can truly present a living experience with a time dimension.
We also used terrazzo, jade, dark wood, and antique copper, which is low-key and prudent, healing and relaxing, full of oriental charm and modern aesthetics.
SENSUAL EXPERIENCE IN THE SPACE
The designer is the director of a drama of life, and the space is the venue for interpreting, shaping, and extending… We design the space and direct the life.
Whether it is a gathering for tea, a loving couple looking at the moon and enjoying a drink, or you spending leisure time alone, in the West Suite, we introduced a garden of nature with wind, smell, and temperature. By fully mobilizing the five human senses, joy of nature arises and a truly poetic life is unfolded.
Based on the design language of Modern Orientalism, we open the five senses of humans through a dynamic line.
From daily routine and gathering to returning to silence, we emphasize multiple experiences, and make full use of the limited space, to make it a ceremonial progression, where the mysterious human sensory experience is fully mobilized.
The immersive sensory journey begins when you step into the foyer and the entrance hall. The public and private areas are artfully divided based on the original layout. An open public area is the first that comes into view, echoing the city skyline. The meeting room, dining room, Chinese and Western kitchen, and bar can be found in a large public space.
The corner dividing the Chinese and Western kitchen and the bar displays the space interest while interacting with the dining room, strengthening communication, and offering more possibilities of life forms.
The courtyard of nature infuses oriental interest into the space while forming a spatial coherence by adding a fireplace. The space has a clear division of public and private areas, combining dynamic and quiet vibes. The sense of distance and shifting views is a process of getting more joy.
In oriental culture, gardens and tea houses were spaces for literati to exchange philosophical and artistic ideas. We turned the corridor into a study and elegant room.
The screen in the tearoom defines the space, and the alternate gaps form a joy of unraveling mysteries. Our gaze wanders in the space, through small holes, narrow slits, the partition…the opening of the fireplace, and the poetic courtyard poetic is vaguely visible.
With an interest in exploring secluded paths, we made use of the topographic variations to create a sense of walking in the garden. With the fluctuation of the path, we enjoy leisure strolling. Connected to the study, the path becomes a dynamic route of the garden tour. Everything becomes logical.
Brew tea with snow and listen to zither on a cold night. Real luxury is not about expensive materials or luxurious space, but the oriental poetic mood and pleasure through spatial planning and construction.
We hope that the spatial scenes can correspond to different lifestyles. By creating a harmonious artificial and natural scenery, we build a bridge to oriental poetry and tranquility, which is calm, relaxing, and elegant, and explore different life forms of contemporary urban residents.
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