Our design proposal reflects the insights of Tao, it also interprets the life attitude of Laotse, ‘the Tao never does, yet through it everything is done’.

The kitchen is the core of this building. It is the One born out of Tao, the origin of the universe. People in the building communicate and interact in the kitchen, they get to know each other. The kitchen is the place where sparks not only come out of the fire in the stove, but also from the clashes of people’s minds.

‘Out of One, Two’ - ‘Two’ represents the Yin and the Yang, the void and the solid that alternate dynamically in our architectural design. Gardens interlining, rooms reaching out of windows, and scenes out of the wall echoed indoor, just like the endless variety of the pores and holes of the Taihu Stone, thin, permeable, porous and wrinkled.

‘Out of Two, Three’ - the three parts of the building are the containers for living, tea tasting and teaching, but their functions are not fixed. People can use the rooms as they feel like, under different situations, as the Three is the Impermanence.

‘Out of Three, the created universe’ - the universe is not made of buildings, rather of people’s daily life in the buildings. Architecture contains life’s endless variety, while no matter to which extent people’s lives may differ, how complicated or sophisticated they may be, the pervading principles bring them to the one true harmony; simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.