Wayuan - the sunken garden 2# courtyard of the Olympic Central Area

The second courtyard of the Olympic Park sunken garden is named Wa Courtyard, or Tile Courtyard. By interpreting a fragment of Beijing courtyard residential architecture, using representative traditional Chinese building material, tile, as the primary expressive medium, combined with trees and outdoor water features, it showcases Beijing's regional cultural characteristics and creates an outdoor resting place with regional cultural background. The architectural design establishes a bond between reality and tradition, and the social aesthetic values and humanistic mood accumulated in traditional culture and embraced by the public are the principles sought in the design's engagement with tradition. The courtyard's theme is to express the mood of civic life within a traditional cultural context. The core of the courtyard is a representative three-bay Beijing residential courtyard. Except for the complete roof and the traditional support system beneath it, all non-load-bearing components have been removed and replaced with open outdoor space, transforming the traditionally enclosed space into an open-air one. Elements such as perforated tile walls, reflecting pools, and standing tile paving are added to the courtyard, injecting new expressive language into the traditional space. All buildings revolve around the central courtyard as a centripetal theme. The project by TJAD creates a public space that reinterprets Beijing's traditional courtyard architecture in a contemporary Olympic park setting.