Abstracted Forms: The Iconic Design of the Restaurant of Metasequoia Grove

 

The Restaurant of Metasequoia Grove – is located at the west end of Shanwan Village in the countryside of Suzhou, a typical waterside village of the Jiangnan region situated on the vast swamp plain of Taihu. Being the first phase of GOA’s low-rise leisure-led complex development, the restaurant functions as a dining space for visitors and a small banquet hall to hold various public events. Instead of just an architectural construction, the project is more of a landscape that immerses into its natural context and eventually becomes part of nature, delivering a joyful moment by the water and a peaceful experience of nature where architecture enables new ways of seeing the landscape.

Architizer chatted with CHEN Binxin, Principal of GOA (Group of Architects), to learn more about this project.

Architizer: What inspired the initial concept for your design?

CHEN Binxin: A grove of metasequoia trees onsite standing by an enormous expanse of water becomes the only nature skyline in this plain terrain. The forms of the metasequoia trees are abstracted and translated into a purely geometric architectural language, a pyramidal frustum, and applied to the Restaurant of Metasequoia Grove as a featuring icon and a modular inspiration for the design. Three different scales of modules mix and cluster together, forming a continuous canopy structure that traces an artificial forest profile within nature to simulate the natural substances’ generative process.

This project won in the 10th Annual A+Awards! What do you believe are the standout components that made your project win?

The purity of form, the unity of form and function, in harmony with nature in form, space, and construction.

What was the greatest design challenge you faced during the project, and how did you navigate it?

To emphasize the canopy’s lightness and the transparency of the banquet hall, we wanted to minimize the quantity and volume of the load-bearing columns. 11 steel columns with a diameter of 15cm are set along the edge of the exterior terrace under the eaves and the columns arranged around the interior edges of the interior space are minimized to 10, however, 15cm diameter is not strong enough and 20cm looks too thick. In order to make it visually light and thin, each interior column is grouped by a cluster of 3 slender steel columns with a diameter of 10cm. In this way. Only 2 thin columns of a cluster can be seen no matter from which direction.

How did the context of your project — environmental, social or cultural — influence your design?

This project is part of a rural revitalization proposal for Shanwan Village. As architects, we want to increase the recognition and attention to this village by reinforcing a sense of local identity through the design and turning this project into an attractor to promote the local ecotourism industry while activating the surrounding areas.

We also designed the boathouse B&B, which includes guest rooms and a tavern. It is next to the restaurant and is still under construction. In the future, the village will operate the restaurant and B&B together to provide diverse rural tourism programs such as agricultural tours, water activities, parent-child campaigns, and more. We believe that developing rural tourism means establishing a sustainable business model that boosts the local economy and provides job opportunities for local residents.

What drove the selection of materials used in the project?

The material selection is all driven by the idea of making the architecture a part of the landscape:

• The restaurant’s eastern wing, which accommodates the kitchens, private dining balconies, and BOH spaces, is wrapped in a rubble stone façade. The façade’s rustic texture and neutral color tone allow the architecture to blend in with the water-edge forest background seamlessly.
• Adopting the form of metasequoia trees is a synthetic metaphor strategy. We choose steel columns to respond to the density and verticality of tree trunks and perforated aluminum panels as the roof canopies’ outer layer to imitate the dancing sunlight spots and shadows that filter through leaves.
• Warm wooden materials cover the interior to foster a peaceful and shrouded feeling as people would feel sitting under trees.

What is your favorite detail in the project and why?

The game of light and shadow for the interior space during the daytime and the sparkling roof seen from outside at night.

How important was sustainability as a design criteria as you worked on this project? 

The sustainability is a multi-dimensional issue. The kitchen, private room, tea room, bathroom, and BOH space attached to the eastern side of the building, are covered in walls made of local rough stone walls interfacing with the natural context. An independent foundation is lifted from the ground. It forms a cavity below to minimize the damage to the local hydrology and soil so that the trees grow within the architecture and the architecture grows within nature. The rainwater harvesting and recycling system from the deign of drainage holes at the corners of the roofs to the infinity pools around. The function as the village’s economic engine, as mentioned above.

How have your clients responded to the finished project?

Thrilled to have such public space not only for visitors but also for villagers.

How has being the recipient of an A+Award evoked positive responses from others?

We have been contacted by many international medias to talk about the project.

Is there anything else important you’d like to share about this project?

The growing tourist industry encourages local residents to participate in the revitalization on their own. We’ve found them beginning to refurnish their houses and receive guests. They even provide customized tourist services. Spending a weekend in Shanwan Village, you will not only enjoy a leisure dinner in the restaurant but will also get to visit farmers’ markets, go fruit-picking, taste homemade dishes from local households, and even do art and crafts in local studios. Together with the restaurant and B&B, these self-operated small businesses diversify the local industry forms and attract a broader range of tourists.

Consultants

Landscape Consultant: Zhejiang LEON Engineering Consulting; Interior Consultant: Shanghai Yishantang Decoration Design

Products and Materials

Aluminum Sheets: Suzhou Jinjin Curtain Wall; Rough Stones: Hangzhou Guo Yanfang Stone Materials; Doors & Windows: Shanghai Hengyi Insulation & Decoration

For more on the Restaurant of Metasequoia Grove, please visit the in-depth project page on Architizer.

Restaurant of Metasequoia Grove Gallery