Chengnan Mansion

Set on an L-shaped corner site in Yuhuatai District, Nanjing, the display landscape of the China Overseas Cheng Nan Gong Guan residence covers roughly 3,400 square metres in total, with about 2,100 square metres of landscape. With little horizontal room to manoeuvre, the design treats the narrow corner as an artistic vignette rather than a conventional residential front yard. The project, designed in December 2017 and completed in December 2018, draws on Yuhuatai's classical association with 'flowers falling like rain' and on the Shanghai-style elegance of the mansion. Flowing, ribbon-like mirror-stainless sculptures double as benches and wayfinding signs, their curved surfaces appearing to move in sunlight; a quiet mirror pool in front of the building lends a Zen stillness, and a glazed-block tree pool pours colour into the water like melted gold, tying facade to ground plane. Semi-transparent glass blocks screen the plaza from the parking area with a soft, hazy porosity. Plum-blossom benches, tuned to the local 'rain of flowers' imagery, continue the poetic theme. Leaves, branches, spring water, colours and textures from the site are treated as ready-made materials, distilled into an abstract aesthetic space where residents can walk, talk, play and pass through. The result is a small but powerful outdoor living room: at once gentle and clean-lined, inviting both lingering and thought.