UNStudio team: Ben van Berkel, Hannes Pfau with Erica Fang, Matt Burdalski, Judy Wong, Xiaorong Mo, Rafael Yoon, Zhengda Hou, Chengyang Liu, Cheng Tan, Chris Liu, Albert Yen, Craig Yan, Jon Espinosa Molano, Dongbo Han, Ami Nigam, Joanna Wang, Ray Wong, Haodong Hu, Yu Zhao, Junya Huang, Andres Monis Rodriguez, Ruijie Xu, Yufeng Tu, Joy Li, and Tony Hu, Antoine Muller, Shail Patel, Wei Huang, Biqin Li, Lawrence Ma, Bin Fu, Pedro Manzano Ruiz, Richard Stewart, Arturo Revilla Perez, Maya Calleja Calvo, Dongjie Qiu, Tsung-Yen Hsieh, Harsh Arora, Zhenyu Yang
Promotion: Chinese architecture practice Studio8 has renovated the interior of a 1930s villa in Hangzhou, China, transforming it into a hotpot restaurant and cocktail bar that celebrates the building’s history.
The Gud restaurant and bar includes a roof terrace, dining space on the upper floors and bar on the ground floor.
The 496-square-metre space occupies a three-storey building that was built in 1939, as well as a later-built extension and the ground floor of an adjacent property.
Antique hotpots are displayed throughout the interior
Although the villa had previously undergone a number of renovations, when designing the restaurant Studio8 aimed to maintain the building’s original features, including the street-facing facade.
Service areas, including the kitchen, restroom and staircase, are located in the extension and adjacent building, leaving the full space of the historic villa for restaurant dining and the cocktail bar.
The cocktail bar features red velvet seating
The Gud restaurant specialises in hotpots, which lead Studio8 to study the culture of the cuisine and introduce aspects of it into the interior design, creating a “museum-like experience”.
The project’s design was informed by three stages of making and experiencing hotpots – the heat from the fire that cooks it, water as the main medium of the food, and the elevation of the flavour coming from the steam.
Studio8 used the themes of “heat, medium and elevation of flavour” to influence the function, materials, textures and light used in each space.
The restaurant interior was informed by hotpot cuisine
The cocktail bar on the ground floor of the historic villa was designed to be a lively space. It features a red floor, a fireplace, structural columns that display antique hotpots and red velvet sofas.
Part of the original brick wall was left exposed and a recessed mirrored ceiling at the perimeter of the room makes the space feel larger and more luxurious.
The interior nods to the building’s history
“As the first element, heat is a fundamental design factor on the first floor, where human interactions were planned out accordingly,” said Studio8.
“The aim was to create a warmer and more welcoming space at the beginning of the hotpot experience, where people and friends meet first, have a cocktail and wait for everyone to arrive.”
The restaurant features glass-brick niches
On the upper floor is the restaurant’s main dining area, which features glass-brick niches in the walls where windows used to be.
At the sides of the dining area, Studio8 opened up the ceiling to expose the wooden roof structure.
The third floor includes a private dining room
“After passing through the heated cocktail bar, comes the second element, water – the medium that reunites all elements,” said Studio8.
“Family and friends are seated together in groups around the round tables on the second floor for the food experience, a process that the architects relate to water reconstructing the atoms of the ingredients.”
A roof terrace overlooks the city
The building’s original timber staircase was removed and a new enclosed staircase that connects the three floor levels was added in the patio area.
The staircase has double glazed U-shaped glass partitions along its floors with a “lighting system to represent the continuous energy flow transition”.
A terrace and private dining room are located on the third floor of the villa.
A new enclosed staircase that connects the three floor levels was added in the patio area.
“Here, the customers are reconnected with the city and able to look at it from different heights and angles, corresponding to the last element, steam, the elevation of taste,” said Studio8.
“The simply designed interior shows off the geometric shape of the attic, while benches on the roof allow customers to have a more exclusive interaction with the city.”
The staircase has double glazed U-shaped glass partitions along its floors
Studio8 is currently working on a number of renovation projects that aim to respect the history of the building, including the transformation of hotels and restaurants.
Chinese studio Atelier Right Hub created a cave-like spa in Hangzhou, China, with a network of interconnected, circular rooms and walls finished in white clay.
Located on the 13th floor of a commercial building by the Qiantang river in downtown Hangzhou, the Soul Realm Spa offers spaces for massage and meditation.
Curved walls lead visitors through the Soul Realm Spa
Local studio Atelier Right Hub was invited to create a calming interior within the building’s rectangular, 220-square-metre floorplan.
This was achieved by inserting a sequence of circular treatment rooms with curved ceilings into the centre of the plan.
A curved blue sofa faces a semi-circular window
“If we observe life carefully, we will find that straight lines are mostly found in man-made objects while natural objects are mostly curved,” the studio told Dezeen.
“Whether it is mountains or rivers and streams, they are curved and full of changes and they have more charm and vitality than straight lines.”
The walls are finished in white clay
According to Atelier Right Hub, the circular plan was informed by the shape of traditional Tibetan singing bowls – a type of inverted bell used for meditation.
The walls, ceilings and floors are made from white clay and blend seamlessly together. They have a textured finish, which the studio likens to “walking barefoot on earth”.
“China used to be a country dominated by farming culture,” Atelier Right Hub explained. “Farmers mostly farmed barefoot in the fields and children often played barefoot as well.”
“These memories are both unfamiliar and longed for in modern cities. Only when you feel the earth barefoot will you let go of your defences – this is also a way we hope spa guests could enjoy real relaxation.”
Private treatment rooms have a circular design
Each massage room features a brass garment hanger and storage tray suspended from the ceiling, where clients can store their clothing and jewellery during treatments.
Curved clay walls also wrap the perimeter of the floor plan to create a curved corridor where the studio has positioned resting areas, a lobby and the foyer.
“The interior space is similar to caves,” said the studio. “The curved ceiling, streamlined walls and the visual axes that revolve around the twists and turns form a fuzzy space-time context that is difficult to synchronize with the outside.”
Showers are fitted within a circular alcove
A series of large, geometric windows punctuate the corridor, including an arc-shaped window that illuminates a small resting area and reveals expansive views of the city’s downtown area.
Its form is echoed in the semi-circular sunken lounge with green banquette seating next to the window.
The spa was designed to have a cave-like look
Other cavernous spas around the world include the Europhia Spa by DecaArchitecture, which is carved into the base of a mountain in Greece, and a subterranean spa in Brooklyn, New York.
