Harbin Xuhui · Baoyu · Bochen House

Harbin, with its Eastern Paris and Eastern Moscow heritage, blends Chinese and Western building traditions, and CIFI's first project in the city takes that multicultural setting as its point of departure. Developed for Baoyu Bocheng Mansion by Weimar Design's Chengdu studio, the 3,380-square-meter landscape is themed on a circular encounter with nature, layering spatial emotion and poetic wanderings through green habitats and weaving Le Corbusier's idea of a promenade architecturale through three narrative settings: beneath the dome, within a palm's breadth, and on a floating island. The entrance portico abstracts CIFI's energy ring into a three-dimensional circular landmark carrying the idea of gathering light, acting both as a filter against urban noise and as a threshold to the inner self. Perforated circular geometry admits soft light and the sound of running water, standing like an art object in the city; curving, decomposed grey feature walls dissolve the hardness of mass and distance. Passing into a turning walk, glass feature walls, trees and pools weave a restrained naturalist picture where summer breeze, moving light and dancing foliage speak quietly of Zen: design should not watch nature from outside, nor invade it, but participate in it. New-naturalistic planting mixes northern-hardy perennials in block drifts of upright flower spikes, with blue-purple New Guinea impatiens, delphinium, hydrangea, speedwell, bergamot and lobelia beneath seasonal-style maples and spire-like spruces, so that the garden flowers in spring and summer, shows leaf color in autumn and holds frost-touched interest into winter. On the waterside, a circular ribbon traces the contour of waves, and the open circular structure guards the thought of a single tree and the imagination of a single cloud, building a centripetal spiritual field that draws sky, stars and water into free coexistence on the floating island. Opened in 2021, the project intends, through warmth and light, to create an experience close to nature that fuses reason and imagination, the ordinary and the dream.