The Well House in Jiayi Miao Village is a further practice of ATLAS Studio in Guizhou province after Dali Dong Village, and it is also a comprehensive upgrade of the brand culture. Adhere to the sustainable pursuit of local culture preservation, the project focuses on the lifestyle exploration and regeneration of southeastern Guizhou, resorting an inclusive attitude and sustainable design strategy, to build a gentle dialogue with modern lifestyles, opening the multi-dimensional perspective of ethnic culture in contemporary development.

1.Cruising into deep mountain: sharing the starry sky, or sharing time of rest.

In the hinterland of Moon Mountain, there is a Miao village called Jiayi, where houses fall on a long and narrow ridge. The village is about 1,000 years old and surrounded by rice terrace. Each spring in March, the rice terrace is filled with water, then the Miao people nearby begin to plow and transplant. After June, the rice turns green, it is cool and refreshing as far as eyes can see. In recent years, a new village was built nearby with a cement road straight across leading to the old village. On both sides of the road, they looked like stilted buildings with an inverted pyramid, which is a mixture of brick-concrete structure with wooden veneer facade.

In the post-epidemic era, physical and spiritual healing has gradually penetrated the public domains. How to rebuild our inner world and adapt to unknown changes directly affects the transformation and upgrading of the consumption context.

Yoga, Meditation, Aroma Physiotherapy, and Daily Ritual are placed in the natural environment of Jaye Miao Village. Wonderful fresh air, long breathing rhythm, healing herbs, rice terrace, and spacious balcony bathtub, guests can relax the body and empty the mind immersing in the calm mountains.

2.Designing a circular lifestyle, and a path of time

Due to the site limitations, four separate houses were selected to construct the hotel, the design had to start up with ‘demolishing of the old house on the original site’. Two are functionalized as accommodation, 9 guest rooms in total; one is a reception center, and the other is a yoga center. In the layout of these four buildings, the design team discusses some basic discipline issues in architecture, such as the modernization of the southwest timber frame structure; the Miao stilted building is a common dwelling structure, and the challenge of its construction technology is to use small timber to build big houses; as to the layout arrangement of the interior space, in addition to the window’s location needs to be operated towards view, this plan is especially emphasized on ensuring the transparency of the indoor and outdoor sight lines, providing a comfortable living experience; as well as paying attention to the design of the thermal insulation private access to each rooms, and sound insulation. This project challenged how to arrange 5 rooms on a 20-meter long narrow site; how to take advantages of the open space between the restaurant and the guest room; how to open double entrances on both left and right side, re-installing the old staircase. Due to the epidemic, the discussion with local carpenters on the construction methods was completed based on remoting communication. Keeping on the sustainability principles, the old demolished timber of the original site was repurposed to form indoor wood flooring. The main structures are built from newly purchased fir wood column, the interior flooring volcanic slate came from Yunnan, and the interior earth plaster and bluestone walls are sourced locally.

This project is interested in creating a building open to the surroundings, aiming to recall the silent unison between human and nature, at the same time, it is trying to provide sojourners a relaxing environment for wandering in the quiet and stretched forest with physical and spiritual healing.

3.Hiding the comfortable experience in the details

Facing to three sides of the mountain respectively, the 9 guest rooms have a 270° ultra-wide-angle landscape view, allowing guests to communicate with the natural scenery anytime. The comfortable experience is almost hidden in the details. People's senses are far more sensitive than we know, and eyes can catch subtle changes of light and shadow anytime anywhere.

The environmental signage, after several discussion with the VI designer, ATLAS insisted that the signage system should not be simply attached to the surface of the building, nor stand suddenly on the roadside, it needs to harmonious coexistence and integration into the environment, just as it existed here many years ago. Finally, the presentation of local bluestones, wooden piles and laser-cut metal characters were selected.

4. Starting a mutual dialogue with the local

The current project covers three aspects of response. First, ATLAS hopes local people inherit own culture and develop their craftsmanship, after witnessing how their traditional wooden houses and daily lives were transformed and developed in modern design. Second, by looking back a simple rural life, it delivers sustainable healthy ideas. No matter how busy we are, don’t forget that there are plenty of good things in life, which we should spend time to appreciate carefully and cheerfully, because people are also part of nature, and "sustainability" means an attitude of being humble. Third, the project unified local government and tourism developers, from a future perspective, achieved an essential step on more beneficially development of regional tourism, providing a tangible practical development strategy.

Different villages are endowed with different natural resource. How to organize local people within a limited budget requires a more inclusive design strategies and diversified development approaches in calm and unknown natural villages, a cultural cultivation position that ATLAS studio stands on.