The project is located on a complicated site, in the old city centre of Fuzhou, the capital of the Fujian
Province. With a Floor Area Ratio of 5,0 and many limiting conditions, a U-shaped floorpan manifested itself as optimum. The program required 400 apartments of 45-110 m2 in size, which could result in a staggering mass of identical units, to prevent this variety and diversity is created by manipulating the balconies around the building.
Like the famous local ‘seal-stone’ or ‘shouxi-stone’, the balconies are crafted around the main building volume. This crafting creates a wide variety of individual apartments, each with their different exterior space. On the ground floor, between the U-shaped volume, a collective ‘living-room’ for all inhabitants is created.
Fuzhou Shouxi building was awarded the ‘Gold Medal Chinese Architectural Housing Design Competition 2012.’