Z House
House, Renovation
Beijing, China
2024
Beijing, China
2024
Z House, a house for the architect’s parents in rural Beijing, renovates an abandoned courtyard house, integrating micro-farming and gardening into its domestic routines.
Set against wooded mountains of Dahuashan town, Z House carefully renews the existing structure and reframes its vernacular heritage for contemporary living: from inheriting its material characteristics and structural logic, to re-choreographing the domestic programs of traditional “Courtyard House” type, the project remains grounded while introducing new poetics to everyday living.
On site, a 30-meter Ailanthus tree forms a “center of gravity”: to its north, a long house; to its south, an enclosed yard - its aura guiding circulation, views and daily activities around it. The project is essentially a planimetric recalibration, tying together points and fields, movements and stillness, panoramic and framed views…a play of rhythm where layers of time, layers of domestic picturesque unfold.
![New/Old Plan]()
Set against wooded mountains of Dahuashan town, Z House carefully renews the existing structure and reframes its vernacular heritage for contemporary living: from inheriting its material characteristics and structural logic, to re-choreographing the domestic programs of traditional “Courtyard House” type, the project remains grounded while introducing new poetics to everyday living.
On site, a 30-meter Ailanthus tree forms a “center of gravity”: to its north, a long house; to its south, an enclosed yard - its aura guiding circulation, views and daily activities around it. The project is essentially a planimetric recalibration, tying together points and fields, movements and stillness, panoramic and framed views…a play of rhythm where layers of time, layers of domestic picturesque unfold.
Client:
Mrs and Mr Zhang
Location:
Dahuashan Town, Beijing
Area:
390 m² / 4200 sqf
Status:
Completed Oct 2024
Project Architect:
Yiran Zhang
Collaborators:
General Contractor: Beijing Tuoda Construction & Decoration Engineering Co., Ltd.
Site Manager: Chunfeng Wang
Millwork: Core Lab Beijing
Special Graphic Support:
Yalun Li
Phorography:
Runzi Zhu
Publications:
divisare - Homepage May 15, 2025
Architizer
Mrs and Mr Zhang
Location:
Dahuashan Town, Beijing
Area:
390 m² / 4200 sqf
Status:
Completed Oct 2024
Project Architect:
Yiran Zhang
Collaborators:
General Contractor: Beijing Tuoda Construction & Decoration Engineering Co., Ltd.
Site Manager: Chunfeng Wang
Millwork: Core Lab Beijing
Special Graphic Support:
Yalun Li
Phorography:
Runzi Zhu
Publications:
divisare - Homepage May 15, 2025
Architizer
Z House is designed as a retirement home for two elderly residents throughout Spring, Summer and Fall seasons. Within a modest budget, it reinstates life on an abandoned site: including converting the main house (a traditional Chinese timber-and-cobblestone construction) into a passive house, adding a kitchen unit, landscaping, and reconstructing the perimeter wall and entry.
In sinuous and weathered load-bearing beams, one can trace the wisdom of rural construction - leveraging the limited resources at hand. To celebrate the “táiliáng” (column-beam-and-strut) system’s structural, rhythmic and material beauty, the renovation maps its inherent logic and follows: After repairing the structural members and replacing the rafters, we’ve prepared the structural skeleton for a new weather-proof envelope - standing seam metal roof and insulated window cladded like a piece of clothing. Previous 5 structural bays were reworked into 3 rooms (Tea Room, Master Bedroom, and Guest Bedroom), where walls stagger around wood stacks, allowing unobstructed expression of the timber framing. Steel framing continues to extend outward as flying eaves, forming a shaded veranda to the front, a service corridor to the back. Veneer bricks and stone foundations are protected and restored as needed.
The kitchen unit is built in steel framing, with service areas to the back and a fully operable glass facade opening onto a concrete platform. The courtyard features a farm garden and various patches of landscape gardens, in a dynamic connectivity of circulation routes. A gravel “river” flows over arrangements of rocks, plants, and paved fields, in the philosophical terms of Chinese gardens, symbolizing greater nature in miniature.
![Landscape Plan]()
In sinuous and weathered load-bearing beams, one can trace the wisdom of rural construction - leveraging the limited resources at hand. To celebrate the “táiliáng” (column-beam-and-strut) system’s structural, rhythmic and material beauty, the renovation maps its inherent logic and follows: After repairing the structural members and replacing the rafters, we’ve prepared the structural skeleton for a new weather-proof envelope - standing seam metal roof and insulated window cladded like a piece of clothing. Previous 5 structural bays were reworked into 3 rooms (Tea Room, Master Bedroom, and Guest Bedroom), where walls stagger around wood stacks, allowing unobstructed expression of the timber framing. Steel framing continues to extend outward as flying eaves, forming a shaded veranda to the front, a service corridor to the back. Veneer bricks and stone foundations are protected and restored as needed.
The kitchen unit is built in steel framing, with service areas to the back and a fully operable glass facade opening onto a concrete platform. The courtyard features a farm garden and various patches of landscape gardens, in a dynamic connectivity of circulation routes. A gravel “river” flows over arrangements of rocks, plants, and paved fields, in the philosophical terms of Chinese gardens, symbolizing greater nature in miniature.
