O-Office Architects 源计划建筑师事务所

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang

(RE)FORMING DUICHUAN TEA YARDS

O-office Architects

CATEGORY
Factory, Renovation

LOCATION
Foshan, China

SIGNAGE DESIGN
The Why Art x Design

YEAR
2020

CLIENT
Midea Group

PHOTOGRAPHS
Chao Zhang, Siming Wu, Chengqiang Huang

MECHANICAL AND ELECTRICAL CONSULTANT
Bun Cong M&E Design

AREA
5477 m²

STRUCTURAL CONSULTANT
Ying Situ, Qiyao Luo, Jiajie Luo

DESIGN TEAM
Jianxiang He, Ying Jiang, Jingyu Dong, Chengqiang Huang, Wanyi Zhang, Lehuan Cai, Yifei Wu, Zhenzhong He, Wenkang He, Weisen Peng

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Siming Wu
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chengqiang Huang

Duichuan Village once named Dui Village, got the name from the original settlement of Huangs and Xies during the Ming dynasty: these two families situated themselves on the westmost and eastmost edge of the village.

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chengqiang Huang
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Siming Wu

Since first built and inaugurated in 1951, Duichuan Tea Yards went through three times name change till it settles with the name as it is now.

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chengqiang Huang

The tea factory was one of the most productive tea yards in the Pearl River Delta region, the Duichuan Tea produced was in fashion for a while and got exported to Hong Kong, Macao, and Southeast Asia.

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Siming Wu
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang

Duichuan Tea Yard situates along the hill, among the lakes, amidst prominent scenery. The existing tea yard spans over 300 acres, with Triassic acid red soil which is naturally nutrient for tea growth. The terrain is dominated by gently sloped small hills, with an average height of 33.6 meters.

Inside the tea yard, there is a 33 hectares reservoir that wraps around the hill. After the year 2000, the market gets diversified, and the output and sales of Duichuan Tea began to decline, which ultimately leads to the abandonment of the yard.

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chengqiang Huang

In the midsummer of 2017, we thread through rows of bungalows attaching to the main tourist area, arriving at a small island in the center of the original artificial reservoir.

The three multi-story factories built in the 1980s are the largest building blocks on the island.

To the south of the factories is several low-rise red brick houses hidden in dense forests where those early tea factory workers lived.

The three factories are roughly symmetrical along the east-west axis. The westmost factory has the largest volume, which had obviously gone through expansion during the heyday of the tea farm.

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Siming Wu
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang

This linearly arranged community was inserted diagonally into the tea-island plantation.

The factory buildings are all three to four-story half-frame structures, its’ washed granolithic wall and thin steel windows seem to be a reminiscence of the time of childhood.

The two factories at the front have long been abandoned. Standing on the rooftop of these factory buildings, a panoramic view of the small island and the large tea garden along with the waterfront on the north side could be seen.

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chengqiang Huang

Modern society tends to make a strong distinction between various organic components of production and living, to dissect and separate so as they get objectified and instrumentalized.

The relationship between these organic parts needs to be re-established for the revival of tea islands and local tea culture, which also serve as an opportunity to reorganize the functions and activities in the current vacant factory spaces.

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang

This space should not be regarded as a man-made object isolated from the natural environment, but the remanent of an organic connection between production and everyday living, inking to the surrounding tea gardens, which accidentally got left out during modernization yet still with some liveliness inside.

Therefore, the spatial revival should be established by re-writing a homage to the past production and craftsmanship; to the architect means that we need to re-emphasize the inner integrity, strengthening the organic connection between indoor production and outdoor plantation, and thus to imbibe the observer with these past experiences.

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
original factory. Image Courtesy of O-office Architects

We tried to find a simple spatial prototype for the reconstruction of the above-mentioned site to load the envisioned cultural settlement.

After several rounds of dialectical exploration of the original site, the design gradually approached a concept of the mixture of "pavilion" and "podium".

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Siming Wu
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Siming Wu

We tried to evolve the prototype of the "Pavilion" into a settlement that encompasses production and detour.

We’ve selected black granite from the south (attached to a reinforced concrete structure) to build a podium, a "viewing platform" that surrounds the original factory complex at the ground level.

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Siming Wu
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang

The porous platform reorganized and redefined the relationship between internal production and natural plantation. Inside is the cultural and public space exhibited by "Tea-scape" as a showcase of the continuation of the original tea production.

On the outside are those restored tea plantations and forests, a platform above to appreciate the sceneries, whilst the landscape gets interspersed by a suspended tea gallery.

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Siming Wu
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang

By using bamboo poles, we’ve weaved a stream of “hanging garden” on top of the three factories, and thus constructed four rooftop gardens with different scales, turning the originally separated rooftop spaces into a set of interconnected courtyards in the sky, allowing the visitor to meander and breath in the view of the tea yards form an angle that is high up in the air.

This courtyard organization naturally extends downward to several corner stairs and thus gets connected to the stone viewing platform.

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Siming Wu

This connection creates a vertical yet horizontal promenade that wraps around the original production space.

We hope this tour can evoke a sense of “In search of the lost time” at the same time act as a response against the rapid industrialization of modern urban and rural areas.

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Siming Wu
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Siming Wu

Hometown and foreign towns are constantly recurring paradoxical issues in the rapidly evolving Pearl River Delta region.

As a model for the integration of large-scale private local enterprise and traditional state-owned industries in the Pearl River Delta region, the reconstruction project of Duichuan Tea Yard aims to complete a transition and transformation between the two.

(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Siming Wu
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
© Chao Zhang

The on-time-onsite construction restores the monumentalism of the site and its past, at the same time creates a kind of landscape geography belonging to the present.

It cherishes nostalgia, reconstructs the hometown, continues local traditions and production while delineating the scenery across.


(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
Original Site. Image Courtesy Of O-Office Architects
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
Original Site. Image Courtesy Of O-Office Architects


(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
Axonometric Before Renovation
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
Axonometric After Renovation


(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
GIF
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
Master Plan
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
Site Plan
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
Sections
(Re)forming Duichuan Tea Yards
Plans

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