Text description provided by the architects
Dongyuan Yin Weiyang in Xi'an, designed by Shenzhen Woya Landscape with contractor Shaanxi Luohan Ecological Environment, sits on the west shore of Weiyang Lake in Weiyang District, where the Wei and Ba rivers converge. The name Weiyang means without end and carries the wish for peace, health and long life; Yin refers both to the lakeside location and to the project's inheritance of the form of the Han-dynasty Weiyang Palace, one of the largest palace complexes in ancient China, which established the Chinese imperial garden tradition of drawing water into the garden. The landscape, about 10,350 square meters, is organized as one corridor and seven realms that reinterpret literati-garden composition through contemporary techniques. The prologue, the bustling slanted street, opens directly onto the municipal road and commercial street, with a hotel-style welcoming water feature and a guest-greeting pine on a stone. Entering the realm of faint light and listening water, the connecting gallery between flanking residential towers forms a symmetrical, hotel-lobby entry; Chinese tallow trees rise behind a water curtain, and sunlight breaks on the moving sheet into scattered sparkles. Drawing the lake, the core court is enclosed by buildings and linked on three sides by covered galleries that conduct a ceremonial homecoming; the mirror lake draws its metaphor from Weiyang Lake and stages the five states of still, moving, leaping, jumping and falling water. The viewing court of clear pines and harmonious courtyard follows a winding gallery with stepping stones, rocks and falling springs, where visitors may sit with tea while mist drifts over the mirror lake; each pine was selected and oriented by angle and form to match the mood of Song painting, and Zhu Zhishan's cursive poem is printed on a pine wall in a modern gesture. The hidden moon court is a garden-within-a-garden tucked behind a curved corridor, with stone benches under tallow trees. The listening-sound realm shows an abstracted canyon, with strip rocks embedded in stepped water like koi ascending a dragon gate. The final winding gallery hides the sound of water behind finely spaced louvers. The project was developed by Xi'an Dongzhuo Real Estate under Dongyuan Group landscape management.
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