Excerpt: Hangzhou Villa Moon Restaurant, an architectural renovation project by Milanesi | Paiusco, is a concept inspired by Li Bai’s Tang Dynasty poem “Drinking under the Moon.” It blends traditional Chinese garden architecture with modern urban lifestyle, using elements like moon-shaped arches, wooden windows, natural stone, and a double-facade shading system. The concept also emphasizes “remove decoration” in interior spaces.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] The concept of Villa Moon is inspired by the scene described in “Drinking under the Moon” by Li Bai, a poet of the Tang Dynasty: “You must drink fine wine, and ride the moon to get drunk on the high platform”. Based on the characteristics of traditional Chinese culture, combined with modern urban lifestyle, in the process of concept creation, contrasting elements of traditional Chinese garden architecture and typical materials of modern architecture are applied, such as: moon-shaped arches (garden entrance doors), wooden windows facade decoration, natural stone and modern double-facade shading system, and the concept of “remove decoration” in interior space.
The project is an architectural renovation project located in the historical block along the Dadou Road and Yunhe (canal). The urban context around the restaurant, the constant alternation of “traditional” and “modern” architectural languages also happens to place the project at a fairly central location.
Here, the change of architectural style is radical, and the restaurant is just at the boundary of urban style transformation, so it is necessary to find a design style, and strive to accompany tourists in this historical and cultural district and retain the memory of Dadou Road. Therefore, the project building adopts a “double-sided” organizational design. The west side overlooks the inner lanes of the historic district: the traditional language of white brick walls and black terracotta tiles are preserved; the east side faces Lishui Road, supplemented by modern architectural language. The project and urban culture The fusion of project and surrounding therefore echoes the starting point of the concept itself.
How can we integrate and express the above elements? The answer is to seek a solution in the control of the transparency of the facade, which uses a wooden sunshade system designed according to the typical proportions of Zhejiang historical buildings. This effect ensures that the facade is shielded from direct sunlight and genitally shows the interior artificial light during night.
The selection of interior decoration and soft decoration materials is based on the concept of “nature”, but not too much “artificial” decoration, materials without complicated processing processes are selected, such as: concrete, stainless steel, micro cement, polished concrete, wood and reeded glass. Considering that after a series of previous renovations, the house completely lost its original structural features, and its own structure is no longer wood, but reinforced concrete, the designers chose to highlight the natural expression of concrete by means of “Remove decoration” contrary to the traditional “covering decoration” approach, they try to “discover” the original face of the building and transform it into a decorative element.
From the inside to the outside, one can overlook the surrounding historical buildings, telling the past and today of the city close to the canal.
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