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Yanqing Li

Yanqing Li

Wuhan, China

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Yanqing Li

Wuhan, China

Firm

Mix Architecture

Type

Commercial › Retail

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2025

SIZE

5000 sqft - 10,000 sqft

BUDGET

$1M - 5M

Yanqing Li is located in the historic district of Hankou, Wuhan, at the intersection of Shengli Street and Eryao Xiaolu. It consists of seven buildings blending Eastern and Western architectural styles, arranged around four intertwined alleyways. Originally built in 1933 by Zhong Yansheng, owner of Zhong Hengji Construction Firm, this traditional lifen (a typical Wuhan alleyway community) was named after the character "Yan" from his name. Having suffered partial damage during the war and later population shifts due to urban changes, Yanqing Li is now seeing new life through urban regeneration. The client's vision is to transform it into an open commercial block while preserving its historic character, revitalizing the area, and making it a pilot project for the broader Sanyang district renewal.

Our design began with systematic research into the lifen typology and the collection of urban memories. We found that what Wuhan citizens remember as a lifen is not necessarily its original, uniform row-house form. Rather, it is a mixed residential community that evolved organically in response to daily needs. Much like Beijing's hutongs and Shanghai's lilong, these modern-era lifen gradually became places where living and commercial activities intertwined. Some units turned into passageways or shared spaces, subdividing original layouts into smaller units; residents' plants and furniture spilled into common areas. Over time, the once rigid and enclosed spaces became open and fluid, fostering a vibrant, lived-in atmosphere. We call this a "spatial evolution" built on an "original structural skeleton." This evolution preserves the historical framework while accommodating the flexible, small-unit demands of contemporary commerce. Thus, our design draws on this natural evolutionary process to balance heritage conservation with commercial programming, while continuing the lifen's role as a living urban organism in constant renewal.

To reveal this historical evolution, we reorganized the commercial circulation. Original courtyards, staircases, and units have been transformed into public spaces that merge with the old alleyways. This transforms the simple internal network of four intersecting lanes into several continuous, loopable public spaces connected to the city streets. Open staircases and second-floor walkways form a three-dimensional promenade that prolongs visitors' stays and enriches spatial experience. The interior spaces become an elastic, open system along these paths: enhanced circulation increases storefront visibility, allowing commercial units to be minimized and flexibly combined; some staircases and units become enlarged nodes for exhibitions, markets, and events; courtyards, second-floor rooms, and preserved terraces—once fragmented and enclosed—are woven into a continuous narrative of exploration, making the stroll itself a reading of history.

Beyond this spatial and circulatory "evolution," we have restrained excessive design intervention. This restraint allows the historic character to stand out and leaves room for commercial activities. It also enables subsequent landscape, interior, and signage designs to add light, diverse expressions atop the historic fabric. Merchants can enter the space as "inhabitants," their furnishings, potted plants, and small decorative items growing into the design's reserved gaps, recreating the shared resting scenes from urban memory. The contrast between old and new highlights emerging lifestyles. This continuous blending of historical atmosphere with contemporary daily life gives Yanqing Li a sense of belonging for the elderly, while attracting young people to engage in fresh ways, sparking new cultural encounters.

Ultimately, Yanqing Li represents a deep exploration of urban regeneration strategies. It is not about conservative preservation of the past, nor about trend-driven visual spectacle. Instead, it is a practice of guiding "regrowth" along historical rhythms. We draw nourishment from authentic urban memories and translate them into spatial narrative and experience. The architecture accommodates operations and content while allowing historical context to continue, self-adjust, and grow within everyday life. We believe this is the most profound respect for old urban fabric—a demonstration of history and culture evolving continuously within contemporary daily life.

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Yanqing Li

Wuhan, China

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Yanqing Li

Wuhan, China

Other Projects by Mix Architecture

Renovation of Nanjing Combat Machinery Factory

Red Box

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Yanqing Li

Wuhan, China

Product Spec Sheet

Collaborating Firms

Team