ChunYangTai Arts and Cultural Centre / Atelier FCJZ

The 600-year-old ancient village of Langtou is located in the northern suburbs of Guangzhou.

As a well-known “accomplished scholars village,” Langtou has many well-preserved old architectural spaces, such as academies of classical learning, ancestral temples, vernacular houses, streets, and alleys,. The word "lang" originally meant the marshland next to the river, and its meaning also extends to lakes or ponds. The ancient village is surrounded by numerous ponds: lotus ponds, fish ponds, and Feng Shui ponds; when the breeze stirs the lotus leaves, it makes a beautiful scenery of Lingnan (south of the Five Mountains) water landscape. ChunYangTai, which we designed, is situated in a lotus pond outside the ancient village.

Responding to the historical scale - Establishing connections with the scale and layout of the ancient village, the complex program – exhibition spaces, library, theater, research studios, and café – are dispersed into ten individual small building units. Building units are connected by “towers” with curvilinear brick walls and form alleys and courtyards of intimate sizes in between.

Merging into the landscape - We have placed nearly 30 groups of planted water ponds on the roofs of buildings; the lush aquatic plants, primarily waterlilies, not only form a natural landscape but also reduce the energy consumption of the buildings. The roof ponds, connected by elevated walkways and the ponds, both designed and natural, in the sunken courtyards and the surrounding areas, create a "multi-level lotus pond system" that blends into the environment.

Inheriting the local culture - Local red tiles and traditional grey bricks are chosen as the primary building materials, together with exposed concrete, to create a local cultural facility rooted in Langtou tradition. As a contemporary interpretation of traditional Lingnan architectural elements such as "Dragon boat ridge" and "Moonbeam", the crescent windows bring subtle and soft lighting into the interior spaces and serve as an arc-shaped frame for observing the surroundings. It has become the iconic architectural symbol of ChunYangTai.