Lu Zhu

The program was a large residential development of 500 townhouses with each building footprint ranging from 90-180 square meters. The site was located near Mount Qingcheng in Sichuan Province and required a dense buildout given the program. The driving question was how to provide adequate daylight while building densely.

I worked on an initial proposal and concept. I began with a study of room configurations and dimensions to lay out a prototypical unit. A 7.2m x 4.2m footprint allowed for spacious rooms and many combinations of rooms and stairs.

Staggering the units maximized the exterior surface area and opportunities for views in contrast to stacking them side by side.

Aggregating the units and preserving a buffer for outdoor space formed a larger neighborhood unit. The individual and neighborhood unit provided two scales for thinking about the project.

The second story is oriented towards the mountains. Through a skylight, each unit has a framed picture window of the mountains uninterrupted by neighboring units.

My proposal was chosen for further exploration through the schematic design phase, where I then worked on a larger team with senior architects, producing drawings and digital models.