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Architects: MAT Office
- Area: 950 m²
- Year: 2024
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Photographs:Qingshan Wu
Text description provided by the architects. Yangma Island is located in Muping District, Yantai. It is backed by Kunyu Mountain and faces the North Yellow Sea. It is said that the First Emperor of Qin raised horses here during his eastern tour 2000 years ago, there is a small island in the east, which looks like a giant elephant bathing in the water, so it is also called Elephant Island. Since its development in the 1980s, Yangma Island has been a local public sanatorium and leisure resort in Yantai due to its facilities such as bathing beaches and racecourses. With the rise of coastal leisure in recent years, Yangma Island has gradually become a suburban tourist hotspot in Yantai. The Jelly Sea and the sea-hunting activities at low tide are both good places to go.
The Bushe Boutique Hotel was born in this context. The site is located in Mabuya Village on the island. It is a square courtyard surrounded by a tiled house and board houses, which was originally used by the village. The site is lower than the road but located at the high point of Mabuya Village. The west and north sides are forests facing the sea for windbreak, and the east side is an open space and a court. From the courtyard, you can overlook Muping and Kunyu Mountain in the distance. We did not choose the "white house" form commonly seen on the island for design in this situation, but hoped to create a way to bring peace of mind. With the help of the "wildness" under the woods around the site and the mountain view in the distance, we formed a natural and simple square courtyard through the gray tiles, stone walls and stone floors commonly seen on the island.
The renovation started with replacing board houses. After preserving and repairing the tile houses on the north side of the site, we replaced the board houses on the west and south sides with single-slope steel structures, which sloped from the outside to the inside, forming a higher eaves in the yard. Secondly, an outer corridor was added to the inner courtyard interface. The space under the corridor serves as the main path and a buffer between the guest rooms and the public courtyard. The dramatic frame effect brought by the continuous anti-arc outer corridor also complements the courtyard landscape.
The living room and reception area form a high space through the double-eave roof. The transparent floor-to-ceiling glass at the bottom connects the west woods and the inner courtyard visually and spatially. Between the double-eave roofs, one side is built with glass bricks on the beams, which brings more soft natural light to the public area, while the long high windows on the other side also allow people inside to see the greenery of the treetops through the two-layer roof. The arc-shaped ceiling and cone-shaped fireplace hanging down in the hall also increase the "wild" experience of the prototype of mountain architectural. The cafe connected to the reception hall was transformed from the original tile house. We retained the sloping roof and simple trusses of the tile house, making the historical construction traces a unique memory in the interior space.
The facades of the east and west buildings are handled differently. The east facade is located on a high platform in front of the open space, the corridor that runs through the whole building is enlarged on the east side to form the main entrance, and it is turned up and arched on the axis facing the distant mountains, forming a viewing window with a "sense of ceremony", which also gives a symbolic facade. The west facade is lower than the woods. From the road on the island, the long-extending single-slope roof and the depressed eaves behind the woods become the spiritual expression of the boutique hotel; the cafe and reception area, with their triangular gables and double-eave arc tops, also become the main visual symbols on the long facade.
We chose granite slabs and textured paint that symbolizes the color of island reefs as the main materials for the exterior corridor and indoor walls. While fully responding to the local nature of the material language, the warm tones also provide a comfortable living atmosphere. The top and floor of the corridor are dark gray to soften the dazzling sunlight at the seaside, create a smooth and glossy feeling in the interior space, and at the same time, strengthen the level of the transitional space between indoor and outdoor.
Except for the tiled house on the north side, the new building is built with steel structure. We have established a structural system that integrates steel structures of different cross-sections from large to small. The main structure uses square beams to form a continuous overall structure, and the eaves of the high and low slope roofs are supported by exposed variable-section cantilevered beams; the outer corridor uses round columns and side beams to tie with the main structure to form a spacious corridor below; the cantilevered eaves of the outer corridor are arc-shaped, and it becomes larger towards the middle. The design uses steel plate ribs with an interval of 600mm to hang from the top, which not only follows the structural logic but also increases the beauty of the details of the eaves. In the specific site of this boutique hotel, we reinterpreted the original rural texture and understood the "local nature" of the northern China islands, not sticking to the conventional interpretation and popular label of "seaside", but let such a "square yard" grow between the mountains, the sea and the woods.
Under the light filtering by the translucent high windows, you can meditate and rest in the guest room facing the woods, with an oil painting-like light; you can also cook tea around the stove and look at Kunyu Mountain in the spacious public area; or you can walk and play in the corridor and the yard… this small building provides a comfortable holiday experience in the suburbs of the city. It can be used as a perfect resting place for island tourism, or a retreat for tranquility and self-improvement.
