Ten Walls / Atelier LAI

Introduction. Situated in the Southern Yangtze area, the project is located in an old street of Qianyuan Town, Deqing City, Zhejiang Province. The old street retains its narrow spatial scale and is accessible only on foot. The site is 10 metres wide and 40 meters long. It was once the foundation of an old house, which has now collapsed, leaving an old wall intact. The site is long and narrow in a north-south direction, with the western side adjacent to the gable of the old residence. A lane about 2 metres wide situates on the eastern side, and the north side is along the old street. The buildings in the old street are mostly whitewashed and tiled with pitched roofs, common in the Southern Yangtze area. The new building needs to be integrated into the figure-ground relationship of the old street but also embraces a new pictorial expression. It attempts to satisfy the dialogue of old memory and to meet the new metabolism.