Glass Brick Dwelling in Bayi Village, Weinan

Shaanxi, China

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Glass Brick Dwelling in Bayi Village, Weinan

Shaanxi, China

Firm

Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd

Type

Residential › Private House

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2022

SIZE

3000 sqft - 5000 sqft

BUDGET

Undisclosed

Focusing on the large-scale rural housing renewal problem in northwestern China, the glass brick dwelling in Bayi Village of Weinan adapts to modern living needs by inheriting the long-term construction characteristics and wisdom of traditional folk houses. By localizing the application of modern green technologies, this special house type shapes a new form of contemporary rural housing that maintains "applicable, economical, green and beautiful" features realized through domestic construction crafts.
The project is located in Weinan City, Shaanxi Province, China. It was originally a single-story flat roof building built around 2000. As being uninhabited for many years, there are quite some problems such as roof leakage, poor indoor ventilation and daylight, as well as moldy interior walls. The owner hopes to renovate and enlarge the house for additional functional units, while also would like to maintain the traditional sloping roof form and retain the courtyard greenery to save construction expenses.
Residential renovations firstly focuses on enriching functions. The gatehouse and main room define the site to be with three entrances from south to north, including the front, middle, and back and courtyards. The front yard is a buffer zone between the house and the national road, which meets parking and crop planting needs. The central courtyard serves as the main living area, while the backyard acts as the storage and equipment burial area. The renovated two-story residence adopts a centralized layout with traffic spaces surrounding the living space. The entrance is set on the south side of the first floor with a sunny corridor. Public spaces such as the living and dining rooms are centrally arranged, while the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen are arranged on the east and north sides respectively. The second floor refers to an expanded residential space, and the outdoor terrace creates an excellent viewing platform and leisure place.
The ecological environment is closely related to the life quality of residents. Glass brick dwellings should focus on the application of appropriate technologies to achieve contemporary greener rural housing with higher life quality. They should highlight housing impacts induced by local natural elements of wind, daylight and water, to cope with seasonal climate variations.
Large-area hollow glass bricks are used in south-facing sunrooms shielding noise while increasing daylighting area; The ceiling slab of the living room on the first floor got partially torn down and a lighting and ventilation shaft was added, to improve indoor daylighting while promoting natural ventilation by means of heat pressure; The roof maintains the traditional "stuffy top" space form of local folk houses as a climate buffer zone in winter and summer seasons to insulate and hold in heat for main living spaces; Sunroom walls are covered with phase-change heat storage materials that can absorb heat during the day and slowly release heat at night; Photovoltaic panels are installed on the roof top to supply electricity for the indoor graphene heating device to achieve an overall zero-carbon heating house; The central inner courtyard is equipped with rainwater purification systems integrating water features to provide the irrigation and landscape water for the courtyard; The toilet sewage is piped into the triple-lattice style septic-tank in the backyard and got discharged into farmlands after purification by ecological wetlands; Domestic sewage from showers and kitchens are also piped into a three-tank treatment sump in the backyard for farmland irrigations, after purification and being stored in a water pool of the foreyard.
The project has made beneficial explorations for achieving greener rural housing with higher life quality in less developed rural areas of western China through low technology means.

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Glass Brick Dwelling in Bayi Village, Weinan

Shaanxi, China

Glass Brick Dwelling in Bayi Village, Weinan

Shaanxi, China

Product Spec Sheet

Collaborating Firms

Team