The project is located in an old historical district in Shanghai within more than 70 years. It has be the sole living space for three generations. Now it will be served as a brand new apartment for the youngest couple. With the limitation of 35sqm, the squeezed space should be sufficient for all three generations.

One of the biggest feature of the building is the triple height space. The architect blend the spatial quality of Chinese garden with full richness into such a small apartment, transforming the space complexity from 2d to 3d, creating a dynamic moving experience in the project.

In the most of traditional Chinese gardens, the space is quite limited. So one should find a way to squeezed all nature elements into this small plot. There are several techniques be used in Chinese landscape design, which could also be implemented into interior design. "Seeing grandness through smallness" is one of the most important techniques. One should experience much more bigger space in such small plot. In this project, designer used many movable doors and furniture to transform space form closed to open, creating much more dynamic space experience in small scale. People could see different thing by walking along the space. This is call "moving by seeing" in garden making. All rooms become only a fracture of the whole experience, creating a holistic opera experience altogether. The strategies of " winded walking circulations" as well as "borrowing views from outside" are also heavily implemented in the project.

"The Story of the Western Wing" as one of the greatest opera of all time, is also introduced in the project. We want to recreate the scenes of this opera in this tiny nutshell. For instance, "TING", meaning pavilion in Chinese, is recreated in the top of the space, becoming a social space for chatting and relaxing. "Tai", meaning podium, is created for the living room, providing Tv and other entertainment system. "Shui" meaning water, indicates the whole walking experience in the apartment.

The whole project is a collage of traditional Chinese garden and modern city life, in order to project the relaxing old fashioned Chinese landscape design into modern fast-pace life in contemporary Chinese metropolis.

Architect: Zhang Hai'ao, Li Di
Structure Engineer: Wang Guoxun
Design Team: HDD(Shanghai huadu architecture&urban design co.,ltd)