Daughter Villa

Drawing on the construction experience of traditional Tujia settlements, this project identifies key issues in mountainous architectural design across multiple dimensions: settlement layout, road systems, building morphology, scenic relationships, the use of local materials, and the integration of landscape infrastructure. Topography is shown to play a decisive role in shaping architectural methodology under complex site conditions. As the primary link between landscape and built form, terrain informs the spatial logic and character of mountainous settlements.

Through this process, the project explored how natural forces embedded in the terrain could serve as an underlying framework for architectural form. When these natural forces are recognized and translated into design strategies, “nature” becomes the structural pre-text for architecture. This approach results in a settlement environment that is both rational and deeply responsive to its context—characteristically “reasonable and unexpected.”

In addition to site planning and architectural form, the project also included computational optimization of guestroom views. Even after minimizing visual obstruction between buildings, some guestrooms still faced blocked sightlines. To solve this, bay windows were introduced and their orientation was optimized using Grasshopper and the Galapagos evolutionary solver. The rotation angle of each bay window became an adjustable variable, while fixed parameters included landscape resources, surrounding buildings, and mutual shading conditions. A relational model was established, optimization was executed, and the results were re-integrated into the architectural model for further refinement. This workflow allowed environmental constraints to directly inform architectural geometry, reinforcing the project’s nature-driven design logic.

Work completed at Baofeng Li Studio (2011).
Architectural Design, Construction Administration