in china’s tangshan city, on the borders of the guye district, archstudio completes its latest project — a 6000 sqm organic farmhouse. the site is a rectangular flat land that acts as a workshop to process organic food and other raw materials coming from surrounding regions. the produces are first collected, packed and then delivered across the country as finished products.
project name: organic farm
design team: han wen-qiang, li xiao-ming, wang han, jiang zhao, huang tao
design company: archstudio
location: guzhi district, tangshan city, hebei province, china
project type: agricultural architecture
site
area: 6000 sqm
architectural area: 1720 sqm
design period: 2015.06 – 2015.09
construction period: 2015.09 – 2016.04
author: han wen-qiang
for this project, archstudio was influenced by traditional courtyard building. indeed, their initial idea was to create a magnified version of a courtyard house with a self-contained and flexible work space — forming a harmonious connection with the natural surrounding and flat fields. the entire complex is made up of four enclosed, relatively independent, houses: material storage, mill, oil pressing workshop and packing area. at the boundary of the building, an external corridor connects the four areas — which is also the route to visit the food processing work space.
the inner courtyard is the grain-sunning ground, with a convenient work-cycle line shaped around it. the central courtyard randomly spans out around the building and topologically forms a space of multiple layers –meeting the demands for natural ventilation and lighting while maintaining a nice interior and exterior spatial quality. the organic connection between the courtyard and houses creates functional and flexible areas of different sizes, under one big roof: small corridor, medium rooms and large workshop space.
the design chooses glued timber as the main structural component due to its light weight, natural and easily processed properties. the farm also sits in a 60cm cement base — making it look as if floating above ground. this technique allows the wood structure to be moist-proofed against the ground and hides the pipelines of several fixed equipment. the facades are covered in translucent PVC boards, which is light weighted and easily installed as well. the choice of materials, structure and multiple layered exterior courtyards create an overall warm, natural and continuous working atmosphere for the organic farm.
from designboom