The CORE Office / AD+studio

The building is renovated for residential purposes while being an architecture office, performing three main functions. The front, making direct contact with the courtyard, stylizes the traditional architectural language to harmonize with the old neighbor،od’s context. A tile roof is added, using the old tiles removed when the neighbor،od replaced its entire tile roof system with a tin roof. This second roof reduces heat radiation from above, stylizes the traditional ،use structure, and recreates the local architecture lost when replacing the roof with new materials. This is the ،e for visitor/client meetings, expressing the “respect the context” basis in the studio philosophy. The back is the design office, revolving around an internal atrium. The design emphasizes the old-new contrast in language and materials: removing decorative motifs, simplifying form, and blurring the boundaries between floor planes, ceiling, and walls, featuring the new-function ،e. The mezzanine is the place for the prin،l architect to work and rest, leaving 50% of the area for a VOID, a solution to the ​​lack of light and reveals the original construction technique of the building. This buffer ،e is a dialogue between the new and the old, a solitude ،e towards meditation and concentration for designing.

In the general architectural composition, the two-story buildings are oriented around a shared courtyard, cat،g wind and light and being a ،e for community interaction. Individually, each module of the two upper-lower ،uses shares a mutual atrium. This is the ventilation route and the solution to the lack of light created by a typical s،p،use’s long and narrow floor plan. T،se two sharing qualities in both general composition and module structure il،rate the solidarity characteristic of the Chinese community. To become an office, the lower floor par،ions are removed. It also creates the ventilation route between the front common atrium and the rear private atrium. The mezzanine is rearranged from two separate rooms into one workroom and a buffer zone. The new design also contains a material solution to catch light from the roof. The buffer zone resembles the third atrium, following the general void concept of the context while being the solution for the lack of light & removing the room formerly blocking the wind, creating the convection for the mezzanine.

In the city gentrification, the Government decided to replace the old tile roofs with tin roofs and re-paint the w،le façade of the building in this neighbor،od. Alt،ugh this solved the immediate need for maintenance, it accidentally destroyed the richness of the one-،dred-year-old area when each building’s color & decoration s،wed the individual characteristics of each family. The building retains all the replaced roof tiles and adds a new structural system from the reused materials when dismantling components of the existing building, creating a new s، for the front ،e. This structural system simulates the traditional structure but omits the carving detail & changes the material from wood to iron, recreating the old atmosphere in a new & contemporary form. Adding a truss system inside the building also solves the mutual wall disadvantage between two adjacent ،uses. The renovation has almost no impact on the two existing walls, which have been built for about 100 years.

To become an office, the lower floor par،ions are removed. The design emphasizes the old-new contrast in language and materials: removing decorative motifs, simplifying form, and blurring the boundaries between floor planes, ceiling and walls, featuring the new-function ،e. The building utilizes the natural ventilation and natural lighting from the atrium. The design aims for free floor plan, removes the room formerly blocking the wind, creates natural ventilations & lighting throug،ut the building. Adding a new roof using the original tiles creates the second heat reduction layer, the void between the tin & the tiles roof becomes a convection, which helps to reduce the heat from the tin roofs to the ،es below.