YMZ house is one of the pilot projects in the Dashilar area and started as a small installation for the 2013 Beijing Design Week in one of the uninhabited rooms of the ground floor, exhibiting our concept for a potential residential redevelopment.

Our plot consists of a series of disconnected volumes on multiple levels arranged around two little courtyards, shared by different tenants. The design was initially focused only on the vacant volumes but, given the heavy fragmentation of the properties and the serious structural pathologies of some buildings, soon it became clear that only operating on the whole courtyard, we could intervene effectively. The renovation would then have a much stronger impact that could eventually benefit both the current and the future tenants.

At the moment, while the developer is establishing a negotiation with the local residents, we are working on different spatial configurations that reflect the different possible scenarios of property redistribution. Our design aims to solve the vertical communication between the two main interior levels and the roof terraces as well as improving the critical illumination and ventilation of the ground floor.

The construction of staircases that work as light-wells creates new vertical cores that help organize the whole internal program. A series of mezzanines maximizes the internal floor area while creating interesting visual connections; at the same time, small terraces and overhanging volumes extend the rooms outwards producing a new interface between interior and exterior spaces.