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Shizhuzhai is located in Wangjing, Beijing.

Two architects start the transformation in 2021

This room is over 200 square meters.

A three-and-a-half-story duplex house with a small courtyard.

They want to live in the mountains hidden from the city.

There is no need to give up work in the city,

You can also get the experience of living in the countryside.

The teahouse and courtyard of Shizhuzhai

This is defined as the third space.

Based on the place between work and home.

There are three tea rooms, a study, a meditation room and a lounge in sequence.

Lower the north-facing windows.

There is no main light source, emphasizing the integration of natural light.

Using natural materials and handmade furniture,

Cleverly use the view outside the window,

Create the illusion of being in a bamboo forest.

Courtyard view

The space managers are Zhang Jing and Zhang Chenlu.

Make some space for yourself to be alone.

When you want to take a breath,

No need to hide in the car.

Can you stop here for a while?

Talk to yourself quietly.

Gain the power of peace.

The following is Zhang Jing and Zhang Chenlu’s own account:

Editor: Hong Bingchan

The ornaments echo the rockery in the garden, and the calligraphy is by Yang Zhongliang

Many people yearn for the countryside and want to be healed by nature, but we have to work in the city and it is impossible to go to the mountains often. I see many people say that after get off work, they have to stay in the car, take a breath, and then go home. We want to explore the possibility of urban mountain living and how to make space nourish people and relieve anxiety.

Two years ago, I came across a house with a yard in a residential area in Wangjing. We define it as the third space, a place between living and working. It is a bit like the courtyards, summer houses and villas of ancient Chinese people. Here you can meet guests, work or stay for a short time. According to different solar terms, we explore the aesthetic attitude of Chinese people in daily life.

Shizhuzhai is named after the lake rocks and bamboos placed in the yard. The building is divided into three and a half floors. The first floor is a reception area and a tea room. The second floor is an office area, a study and a small tea room. The third floor is a rest area and half a floor is a meditation room. Going up one floor at a time, it becomes quieter and more private, and going down one floor at a time, it becomes more open and brighter.

The rest area between the first and second floors

"There is no place to rest here", a quote from Su Shi

The overall structure of the house is like a mountain, stacked up layer by layer, simulating the structure of ancient paintings. There is a building at the foot of the mountain. Climbing up, there is a waterfall halfway up the mountain, and a small water pavilion appears. There is a pavilion near the top of the mountain, and a temple above. We made the stairs feel like a mountain road.

Boundary Stone

For private spaces like bedrooms, cloakrooms, and bathrooms, we place a small barrier stone a few meters from the door. It is not noticeable and can gently remind guests that it is best not to enter the space on the other side of the stone.

In fact, the house is not big. In a space of less than 300 square meters, we use the interweaving of human movement and sight lines to make people feel the continuation of space. At the entrance of the stairwell on the first floor, it is written "a square inch of land is a paradise", just like Tao Yuanming's "Peach Blossom Spring", starting from here to explore. On the platform between the two floors, there is a poem, "there is no place to rest here". You can stop here and feel the scenery of the process.

Deliberately lower the study window to avoid the buildings in the community

Sitting in the small teahouse on the second floor, looking to the right, you will find that the windows are deliberately lowered, and you can't see other buildings in the community. You can only see the hawthorn tree outside the window. Looking down, you can see bamboo and stones. People's sight wanders among them, as if they are in nature.

Different angles of the small tea room on the second floor

Looking down through the branch window at the first floor, the other side is connected to the study

In fact, there is no shortage of large spaces nowadays. Many people have large houses, but no space for solitude. When we designed Shizhuzhai, we intentionally set up scene areas for many people to gather together, and also left corners for solitude, which is more in line with our current living conditions. The principle of a house is the same as that of a person. Only when you warm yourself can you love others.

The tea room on the second floor has an inscription on the wall: "Who am I sitting with? The bright moon and the cool breeze."

There are many small spaces in the house, such as teahouses and meditation rooms, which are about two or three square meters in size. There is no main light source, and we regard light as a hidden existence. The natural light outside the window hits the ground, reflects on the wall, and spreads like ripples.

Modern people's understanding of light is different from that of ancient people. Today's light is very precise and uniform, but lacks natural changes, and many of them are beyond the range that the eyes can bear. In ancient times, light was gradual and the edges were blurred.

When I was a kid, I watched Doraemon and imagined myself hiding in a closet. The small space gave me a sense of the primitiveness of life, which put me in a state of introspection. I was very focused, and I could talk to myself and feel healing and comfort. After we moved in, we often stayed in our own little worlds without disturbing each other.

Completely different materials and styles separated by a wall

We have always wanted to create a space with oriental temperament, which is not entirely functional, nor is it limited to the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind, nor is it just about the "appearance". The plants in the yard, the old stone slabs on the ground, the shadows cast by light on the flowers and leaves, the sound of the piano floating in the tea room, each medium is an oriental language.

We want to please ourselves completely, reject commercial materials, and use traditional natural materials and handicrafts. Although it takes longer, the cost is actually lower.

Plant-dyed fabrics, shell-dyed walls

The wall is made of shell material, which has a texture similar to rice paper. Chinese people love to eat barbecue, and the shells they eat are buried deep underground, which can easily cause water pollution. Diatom shale can not only recycle and reuse shells, but also repair the heart and lung functions and absorb and decompose harmful substances in the air that harm the human body.

All sliding doors and windows are made of original blockboard. It is the basic board for furniture making, purely functional, and rarely used directly. We accidentally discovered that the wood grain on its surface is very similar to "mountains and waters". The life of the tree ends here, but it also means a new beginning.

Texture of Simon board and lacquer

Glass, steel plates, we are now used to being surrounded by industrial materials, which have nothing to do with human nature, are alienated and rough. But we cannot live without these things, it is impossible not to flush toilets, not to install glass, right?

The door panels, shelves, and pillars are all made of lacquer, the fabrics are made of cotton, linen, and natural dyes, and the floor is embedded with inkstone. All the lacquer furniture is polished by us and our colleagues in the studio. It is not as smooth as the furniture on the market, and the speed of making is very slow, but every time you touch it, you feel the warmth and human emotion.

Choose seasonal flowers according to the season

We didn’t deliberately buy anything new for Shizhuzhai. All the objects were collected when we came across them at work or during travel. We just liked them and kept them there without considering whether we could use them.

Italian antique cabinets, Jianzhan, glass sculptures

Nowadays, when it comes to creating an oriental space, the so-called new Chinese style is used, which is rather deliberate. We put together the Italian antique cabinets and the German modern lamps.

Saruyama Osamu's antique clock and Ozawa Akiko's flower vase

On the walls are oil paintings from the 17th century, and calligraphy works such as Zhao Puchu's "Still in the World" and Wu Changshuo's "Micro". The objects are more diverse, including Martin Janecký's glass works, Tang Dynasty Buddha heads, Sui Dynasty Xiangzhou kilns, incense burners from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Ming and Qing Dynasty Buddha statues, ancient pottery, clocks recreated from ancient artifacts by Saruyama Shuu, flower vases by Ozawa Akiko, and more than 200 Song Dynasty Jianzhan wares.

Wu Changshuo's calligraphy "Micro" (below)

This kind of contradictory dialogue is full of stories, and it has never been a fixed pattern in Chinese style for thousands of years.

The pleasure that people feel when staying in a place is not stuffed. The objects that you see, as small as a tea table or a flower vase, can also have a great atmosphere. As long as you feel that their inner temperament is interconnected, you don't have to stick to time and region.

I don't know why, but this happens often. I was outside answering a phone call and was very upset, but when I came in, I suddenly calmed down. A sentence popped up in my mind: If you are too nervous, you will lose your wisdom. Sometimes, if you stop for a while, things will change naturally.

The famous tea master Li Shuyun is a frequent visitor to Shizhuzhai

Many friends come to our place, sometimes just to be in a daze, lie on the ground, listen to the sound of rain hitting the bamboo forest, and feel the changes of the four seasons. This may be a kind of healing that space brings to people's hearts. "The house is built in the human world, but there is no noise of cars and horses."

After all, we are in a downtown area, and the first floor faces a main passage in the community, so we used very good soundproofing materials for the doors and windows. Without hearing any noise, we naturally feel that things are slower outside. However, there is not much intentional soundproofing inside. When the whole space is quiet, people will naturally become quiet. People speak softly, move slowly and gently, and the relationship between people becomes peaceful.

The neighbor's pet duck suddenly visited the yard

There are no screens in the whole house, and no curtains on the windows of the study, just to avoid blocking the view and to be close to nature at all times. No one likes mosquitoes, and there are also small insects flying in. But we all agree that experience is more important. If you want to know what you want, you must sacrifice some functions. After moving in, I fell in love with rain for the first time. The sound of rain is gurgling. I opened the sliding door, sat there, and just listened to the rain. It was beautiful.

There are three kinds of bamboo planted in the yard. The purple bamboo has strong growth and cold resistance, which will erode the nutrients of the early spring bamboo. We deliberately left it wild to see the struggle between the bamboos over time, like a bamboo world.

In winter, it snows in Beijing, pressing the bamboos down very low. Bamboos are very tough and will not break no matter how they are bent. We are like being in the snow bamboo painting in Song Dynasty, drinking tea by the stove in front of the window, just like the leisurely wildness of "picking up dead pine and boiling waterfalls". How can people's spirit not be greatly satisfied?

A person's highlight moments are built up by food, clothing, housing and transportation. How you live your daily life determines the level of your highlight moments. Playing music, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, wine and tea, live a good life and feel the power of letting go of anger and settling down.