Longhu Zhen such as Fu

Zhenru Mansion in Huizhou, Guangdong, is a "natural island" beside Jinshan Lake with first-line lakeside resources, developed by Zhonghai Hongyang Real Estate with client team Wei Gang, Sun Jiali, Yang Honghai, Xu Yaohong and Li Liangwei, landscape by ACA Maiken Landscape's Second Studio and interiors by Zelin Art. The 21,700-square-metre site is small but occupies a prime urban position, and the design pursues the precision of a small Singapore-style garden mansion: strong image facade, strong craftsmanship, strong ritual, strong experience and strong service. The strategy is to treat the whole site as a forest first, nestle the buildings inside it, organise walks and then insert functions, so that the architecture recedes into the woods and the garden becomes the protagonist. A 60-metre-wide, 9-metre-high entrance with nine bays - echoing the most elevated Chinese imperial building order - fuses landscape and architecture into one. The arrival sequence builds five ritual layers; the welcome water feature is sculpted like dragon scales, carved from a single block of imported Brazilian black-gold marble whose internal golden crystals glitter even when dry, and at its centre stands a bespoke peacock sculpture named Nanxiang, an auspicious "dragon and phoenix" image for wealth. The square lobby opens through 270-degree floor-to-ceiling glazing onto an infinity pool. A sunken courtyard blends interior and exterior into a clubhouse of coffee, picture-book reading, aromatherapy, science display, crafts, flower arrangement and postal experiences for all ages, while the children's play area is a shaded courtyard theatre with alphabet steps, a star tunnel and three-dimensional slides; the flooring uses the same manufacturer as the Guangzhou Asian Games for safe play. Purple trumpet trees were chosen for their hydrangea-like bloom as a local substitute, and the sunken courtyard brings about 15 metres of side daylight into a breathable garage with 25-square-metre light wells at each entrance. The pool is monitored by smart water-quality sensors, and the elevated ground floor is an extended communal living room where children draw, parents talk and weekend workshops happen. Worn-wash-stone paths were hand-laid by specialist craftsmen, and the tallow grove behind the pool was transplanted from more than a thousand kilometres away in Anhui so that residents can feel the turn of the seasons. The landscape scheme took 308 days and more than twenty rounds of refinement, covering 6,110 square metres in the opening phase and 18,229 square metres in the delivered zone, completed in 2022.