The peculiarly shaped granite peaks that form China's Huangshan mountain range started forming roughly one million years ago. Over the past few centuries, the land has taken on a important, almost mythical role in Chinese art and literature. It's stature swelled on the global stage when, in 1990, it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, ultimately becoming one of China's major tourist destinations. While troves of visitors can bring about unwanted pollution and new high-rise hotels to accommodate them, one architect is using his creative energy to build residential units in the area while minimizing the disruption to the natural environment.
Ma Yansong, the Chinese architect and founder of MAD Architects , recently completed Huangshan Mountain Village, a series of buildings meant to accommodate residents coming to live in this popular region. The exterior of the structure is outlined with organic lines, a design which was meant to mimic the natural shapes of the environment.
The structures are meant to mimic, and thus, blend into their natural environment.
Indeed, much like the unique topography of the Huangshan mountains, the undulating formation of the Yansong's structures mean that no two apartments are the same. And since visitors flock from all corners of the globe to see the natural beauty of the region, the makeup of the buildings was meant to draw its inhabitants outdoors as much as possible. To that end, each apartment unit features an expansive outdoor balcony, opening the space to the mountains and Huangshan Taiping Lake. "Rather than just being observers of the natural scenery, those who stay in the apartments will become fully immersed in it," says Yansong. Much like the form of a mountain, the buildings were designed so that the lowest sections occupy the most space, with each subsequent level becoming smaller and smaller toward the top. This approach allows for each of the outdoor balconies to look as if they are a series of tea fields, which are also natural in the region.
The undulating balconies were inspired by the area's mountainous topography and tea fields.
Ultimately, Huangshan Mountain Village follows the ethos of MAD Architects design philosophy. One that pushes the ideology that, according to Yansong, "people can still live in nature without destroying it." Because ultimately, that's what his firm's work is about. "While we respond the conveniences of modern living, we find ways to make architecture more humane, more in tune with nature─that we really consider the type of legacy we want to leave behind," says Yansong.
