The owners of The Flowing Garden are two entrepreneur brothers. It is composed of three parts: two residential spaces for each brother’s family and a leisure space for gathering, meeting, fitness and other activities. The brothers hope that the newly-built house would be the space carrier of the whole family memories from generation to generation.

Except for the land to the south, where the ocean is barely visible through the woods, there’s no desirable landscapes on the other three sides. Therefore, the design focuses on the courtyard in the interior space. The climate is generally warm in southeastern China . The courtyard not only improves the environmental conditions, but also creates the natural division and transition between the three parts, provoking a sense of continuous spatial flow. Firstly, we divide the site into two because its entrance is on the north side of the road. The north side is allocated for the public leisure space outward, and the south side is designated for the private residential space inward, and a shared pond is situated between these two parts.

Then the residential part is divided in half into two residential units to generate a negative space, which naturally forms a ribbon courtyard between these two units. Except for the two-story volume on the north and south sides, the ground part of the buildings is spread out in a single layer. Such a spatial scale is more in line with the theme of the garden. The leisure and residential parts have different functions, and scales of respective spaces are different from each other, creating contrasting atmospheres in internal spaces that are all unique. The leisure space is for public activities, so the scale is relatively open and extensive. But the residential part is more compact, giving a delicate sense of home.

The fair-faced concrete is used as the building material. The pouring of the concrete wall adopts a small formwork of pine wood, and the horizontal wood grain is in line with the horizontal flow of small-scale spaces. After the materials are concise and unified, it turns out that the building itself becomes the background, instead, the space becomes the protagonist, which has a higher value. According to the space feature in different interior areas, we select different materials and pay attention to the appropriate use of the indoor materials. A certain balance is achieved between the “warm” materials and the “cold” concrete, refined and restrained.

For the houses centered with the courtyards, plants are essential for landscaping. The choice of plants should match with the space and be suitable for local climate. After the planting is completed, the courtyard space has undergone a fundamental change, and the fair-faced concrete wall has also become a curtain for the shadows of the trees. Most importantly, the growth of vegetation over the time creates a time and memory bond that meets the owners’ expectation of relaying this space to their future generations.