Shanghai red lu ya Holiday&Garden

Holiday & Garden is a 1,500-square-metre private courtyard at Honglu Yasong in Shanghai, designed by Zhu Weiguo (Mark Zhu) with team members Yu Chenming, Yu Qiu and Li Mingming, for a family with two young children and a German shepherd. Because the children and the dog need large amounts of outdoor running space, the design preserves a single, generous, unbroken lawn in the centre and pushes all ornamental and leisure functions to the perimeter, so that from the living room and dining room the owners can watch the children run while feeling the seasons. The visible gate facade could not be changed, so only planting outside the door was refreshed to echo the interior. The garden has two entries: a larger electric iron gate for cars and a smaller pedestrian door that opens directly onto the main landscape; because the original small door was too transparent, a metal screen was designed on the same decorative language as the rest of the garden to prevent the interior from being read at a glance. Against the wall facing the house, a layered landscape wall is composed through materials, lighting and running water, softened with planting to give a resort-like atmosphere. The main leisure pavilion is sunken, and the side of its adjacent pool is made of large translucent acrylic panels, so that the water reads as a continuous, soft-edged surface that relaxes the senses. The side garden, narrow and shaded beside the house, is treated in a more naturalistic style, winding as a quiet path. The whole project is a portrait of how a good garden reads its clients' lifestyle, aesthetic preferences and daily irritations before a single plant is chosen.