Daibu Old Street, a historic riverside town in Liyang, centers around Shanqing Bridge—a single-arch stone bridge built in 1737. Once a bustling hub for trade and cargo, the area now anchors the quiet rhythm of community life.

The Shuangjing Teahouse occupies a two-story structure at the bridgehead, facing the water on one side and narrow streets and homes on the other, with its gable wall seamlessly merging with the bridge.

01 A Room Floating in Air
Within the teahouse’s compact 60㎡ footprint, instead of placing the stairs along the edge to maximize usable space, a floating staircase stands at its core. The structure transcends a mere functional passage, becoming an independent "room." Climbing this “room” becomes a spatial journey: daylight filters from above, while weathered bricks and stones underfoot echo centuries of history.

02 Wild Spaces: A Clash with Traditional Spatial Patterns
The floating room interacts with surrounding structures through connections, cuts, and leans, generating unexpected "wild spaces." It redefines how different areas can join together, creating unconventional sequences of spaces.

For instance, the area beneath the stairs guides visitors from the entrance to the sunken hearth, shaping movement through varied clearance heights for different people. This “space under the staircase”—neither a corridor nor an enclosed room—naturally delineates various functional zones. Walls around the staircase double as exhibition surfaces, transforming the structure into a curatorial device. These “wild spaces” challenge rigid spatial norms, inviting improvisation.

03 Life as Performance
Though the old street has lost its commercial hustle, Shanqing Bridge remains a stage for daily life—laundry, fruit drying, and neighborly chats. The teahouse, rooted in this rhythm, integrates this vitality through adaptable features:

·Recessed eaves create shared social space.
·Openable windows stretch tea gatherings onto the bridge.
·A cantilevered steel balcony overlooks the river, fostering conversations with passersby.
·The stone hearth offers a front-row seat to the old bridge’s daily scenes.

Here, mundane routines blends with curated moments, turning life into an immersive performance.

04 Double Light Wells
Two light wells, aligned with the roof's shape, channel natural light into the dim interior. This enables occupants to sense shifts in time and weather while immersed in tranquility. The wells echo the teahouse’s name, Shuangjing (Double Wells), enriching the space with dynamic light and shadow .

05 Traces of Time
Original structural elements were replaced, but mottled walls, window layouts, and roof forms were preserved. A decades-old grapevine at the base of the wall bore fruit again last summer.

Interior materials—aged bricks, reclaimed stone, and unfinished steel with traces of time—reveal layers of history, allowing the architecture to evolve organically with use.