Steam House

Beijing, China

Photo © Shuxian Feng

Architects: Praxis d'Architecture

Location: Beijing, China
Year: 2011

Aiming towards creating a small cluster of live+work studios for artists and collectors, a group of five architects called JACK was invited to design 11 houses in a 30 mu land parcel in Xindian village, Songzhuang. The master plan (designed by German architect Roger Bundschuh) created a “platform” where buildings are situated mostly by periphery of the site, leaving inner shared gardens private to the outsiders.

Praxis d'Arch was assigned A6 site that is the most public with the context of the 30 Mu Series and yet the most private from the street. The Steam House expresses this duality through both the program, acting intimately as a spa and community center of the compound simultaneously, and through form, when ‘in use’ the building’s shell will fill with steam, having a ghostly presence among the others and when ‘not in use’ it will stand a clear glass box, completely transparent and open.