Papa’s Hostel

The project is located in Pingtian Village, Songyang County, Zhejiang Province, China. The old building is 100-year old, with two floors, rammed earth walls and timber beam column structure and idle for years. In this area, the typical folk house usually has three rooms on the first floor, with a meeting hall in the middle and living rooms on both sides. The second floor is open for storing grain and sundries.

The new building is a youth hostel. The first floor is for public space and the second floor guest rooms. The design retains the exterior appearance of the original building, which is consistent with the surrounding local traditional houses, while the interior has been transformed boldly. On the first floor, the original wooden partition boards are demolished to combine three independent spaces into a large one. Here is the coffee and leisure bar, serving both the residents of youth hostel and the local villagers. The second floor maintains the permeability of the original space, adding “houses in the house” as a residential unit. The three houses in the house are constructed by wood frames and sunlight boards, light, transparent, removable and reusable, which form a dialogue with the old rammed earth walls and log structure. Installed with wheels, the three houses can be moved in the building, forming interaction and gameplay between the building and the people, and making the space variable. The lighting also enhances the dramatics of the space, and the atmosphere of the space can be changed through the conversion between the warm white light in the ordinary mode and the color light in the party mode. The design of toilet and bathroom continues the material and atmosphere of the main space. Ambiguity and dramatics endow the old building with a different new expression.

Project info

Project name: Papa’s Hostel
Location: Pingtian Village, Sidu Township, Songyang County, Lishui City, Zhejiang Province, China
Client: Jiang Bin-Long (a local villager from Pingtian village)
Chaired architect: He Wei
Architectural design team: Chen Long, Li Qiang, Chen Huang-Jie, Cheuk Chun-Yung
Lighting design team: Zhang Xin, Han Xiao-Wei, Zhou Xuan-Yu
Design year: 2014-2015
Completion time: 2015.09
Area: 270 square meters
Cost of Construction: RMB 200, 000
Photographer: He Wei, Chen Long