U-shape room

Shanghai, China

Photo © Tian Fang Fang

Drawing © atelier tao+c

Hotels + Hostels + Guest Houses

Architects: Atelier tao+c

Location: Shanghai, China
Year: 2018
Team: Liu Tao, Cai Chunyan, Wang Wei deer, Han Lihui

Located on the ground floor of an old garden house, it’s a U-shape room with a full-faceted semi-circular window facing the back garden.

The 42sqm room was once the ballroom of the house and then a couple lived in it for decades, eventually moved out. How to revive an original single function room to meet new need of living is a problem faced by many vacant rooms as such.

The architect inserted a huge composite piece of furniture or a micro “furniturisation” architecture into the room. The rich interface formed by the interweaving of concrete blocks absorbs the surface and plane of daily life into complex structures, thereby obtaining a looser space for activities. A 42 sqm room results with a living room in 11 sqm, kitchen and dining room in 20 sqm, a bathroom in 4 sqm, a foyer with wardrobe in 5 qm, a bedroom in 15 sqm and a study in 4 sqm.

In this project, the function of walls and floors was replaced by furniture, which became a reduced kind architectural miniature.