Text description provided by the architects
No. 5 Binxi West Road is a high-end residential project in Tianjin jointly developed by CIFI, Vanke and Haijing, with landscape design by Earthscape Inc. and TOA (Norfound Landscape), client Tianjin Lida Real Estate Investment, and built by Shunjing Landscape. From the outset the scheme distils Tianjin's mountains, rivers, lakes and sea into a residential garden themed as the "Courtyard of Time", drawing on the five Chinese elements - fire, water, wood, metal and earth - to create a series of sunken spaces that blend Eastern zen with modern minimalism. An integrated gatehouse on the south side forms a weighty threshold, its tree-lined approach leading inward to the Water Court, a sunken artistic garden of natural rockwork with a soft, open character. The central pool is lined with crushed stone and edged ecologically with water lilies and umbrella palm, ringed by Japanese early cherries, red maples, crabapples and crape myrtles for four-season interest. To the east, the Metal and Earth courts become a sunlit living garden of more than thirty species of perennials over rolling lawns; to the west, the Fire and Wood courts host an artistic, forested retreat, where an optical-glass sculpture plays with reflected colour and where ash, clustered maple and maple shrubs shade the ground. Craft is recorded in detail: the Water Court's cascading wall is cut from natural-faced Chinese black granite and dry-hung in stainless steel, while the 20-tonne feature stone from the Taihang Mountains is sawn in two, hand-polished inside, and placed after nearly thirty hours of positioning to evoke a deep Eastern mood. Paving uses flamed black basalt, sesame-grey and golden-yellow granite in running-bond, aligned and random-laid patterns, with Chinese black stone stepping-stones scattered across the lawn. Planting pursues a natural, wild abundance built over micro-topography of trees, shrubs, perennials and ground cover that flows into the stone paths - a garden in which four seasons of scenery hold the ideal of daily life.
Editor's Pick
