Breeding small courtyard

Zisheng Courtyard is a roughly 200-square-metre tea-house and guesthouse in a historic Beijing hutong, designed by Jie Jie Studio (Ming Guanyu, Qi Ming) for Beijing Zisheng Culture, built by the Chen Fengli team and photographed by Qiu Ripei. When the architects found the site in spring 2018, it was covered by a makeshift structure and enclosed on three sides by apartment blocks, with only the northern side opening toward the continuous roofscape of Beijing's traditional siheyuan courtyards rolling north toward Deshengmen. From the roof of a neighbouring eight-metre white building, the practice imagined those roofs as an endless layered sea of waves, and the project grew from that image: a house that grows on the waves, with forested crests, pavilions floating on the water and boats moored among the peaks. The design was built in five occupations. First, the roof-wave, layered and undulating in form. Second, the ground-wave, reinforcing the idea of waves while forming the terraced base. Third and fourth, the long pavilions, which are the house itself: a main building with curved roofs embedded in the waves, and flat-roofed pavilions floating on the waves, their combinations setting the overall layout. Finally, the layered forest, made of door leaves and plants. The plan then splits into an eastern public tea garden and a western private wing for guests and the owner, with operable leaf doors that open both into a continuous courtyard. Curved rooflines draw on the hip-raise curves of Beijing siheyuan timber frames, clad in overlapping slate tiles; the ground wave rises from the eastern pool and ends at the western wall. The water corridor on the east side straddles a pool on glass flooring, with bamboo on three sides. The drawer hall (Ti Ting) can slide a box out into the courtyard to double its area, exploring architectural flexibility. The Yun tea room, Song-court guest room and Water-court guest room occupy the western side, joined by floating pavilions such as the Little Lively Place, Pine-Gathering Jetty, Begonia Gorge, Toon-Picking Boat and Cloud-Ladder Boat, each perched on the roof waves. The project is located at No. 61 Deshengmen Inner Street, Xicheng District, Beijing.