Hutong Children’s Library and Art Centre Beijing, China Structure Project, Design Images, Chinese Architecture

Hutong Children’s Library and Art Centre, Beijing

Micro Yuan’er Building Development in China – design by ZAO / standardarchitecture / Zhang Ke Architects

Location: Beijing, China

Photos: AKTC / Wang Ziling, ZAO, standardarchitecture

A children’s library selected for its embodiment of contemporary life in the traditional courtyard residences of Beijing’s Hutongs.

Architect: ZAO / standardarchitecture / Zhang Ke

3 Oct 2016

Hutong Children’s Library & Art Centre in China

Abu Dhabi, UAE, 3rd of October 2016 – The winners of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture were announced today in a ceremony in Abu Dhabi.

One of the 6 winning projects:

Micro Yuan’er, Beijing

Hutong Children’s Library and Art Centre, Beijing

A small-scale project that enriches bonds amongst communities and revives Hutong life.

Cha’er Hutong is a quiet spot one kilometre from Tiananmen Square in the city centre. Number 8 in this neighbourhood, located near a major mosque, is a typical da-za-yuan (big-messy-courtyard) once occupied by over a dozen families.

The courtyard is about 300-400 years old and once housed a temple that was then turned into residences in the 1950s. Over the past fifty or sixty years, each family built a small add-on kitchen in the courtyard.

Almost all of them have been wiped out with the renovation practices of the past years. In redesigning, renovating and reusing the informal add-on structures instead of eliminating them, it was intended to recognise them as an important historical layer and as a critical embodiment of Beijing’s contemporary civil life in Hutongs that has so often been neglected.

In concert with the families, a nine-metre-square children’s library built of plywood was inserted underneath the pitched roof of an existing building.

Under a big Chinese scholar tree, one of the former kitchens was redesigned into a six-metre-square miniature art space made from traditional bluish-grey brick. Through this small-scale intervention in the courtyard, bonds between communities have been strengthened and the Hutong life of local residents enriched.

Award Cycle: 2014-2016 Cycle
Status: Recipient
Location: Beijing, China
Client: Dashilar Investment
Architect: ZAO/standardarchitecture / Zhang Ke
Design: 2012-14
Size: Built area: 190 m2; Site area: 350 m2
Completed: 2014