Shiyuan is a beautiful contemporary Asian house located in Beijing, China, designed in 2019 by Days in YARD Studio.

From an architect’s professional practice, even for a private small space, or a yard for a hermit in solitude in the city, priority will also be given to consideration of the project’s location. This courtyard lies between two ancient temple clusters: one, only a block away, is the Northeast watchtower turret of the Palace Museum; the other, occupying half of the alley to the north, is the Zhizhu (pearl of wisdom) Temple. The former has become a cultural calling card of the civilization of the ancient capital Beijing, while the latter, restored and rehabilitated several years ago by the Belgian-born architect Wen Shounuo and his team, has started to hint at the promise and potential of reviving ancient courtyard space into something new. I face a task of arrangement and composition, with an abundance of threads to untangle and unravel, to respond and resolve:
Project Architectonics: Proactive Balancing of Neighborhood Relationship; Street Planning and Transformative Reconstruction
Architectural components in the original construction were seriously damaged; the existing structure violated the code of the post and lintel construction system in north China. Both columns for the north and west walls were physically missing, leaving the space basically unlivable. To the south, a neighbor has four windows directly opening into ou...