Capitalising on the increased demand for luxury housing by fast-growing numbers of affluent mainland Chinese, the clients required a 360-unit luxury pioneer gated housing community within a golf course adjacent to the west beach of Haikou City. This was the first of its kind on the island.

The master plan integrates a resort golf course with villas and townhouses, recreating the semi-tropical landscape that characterises the northern region of Hainan Island. The overall landscape is a pastoral setting with sparse greenery that frames the waterfront ocean view from the site.

This development creates a contemporary resort lifestyle enriched with tradition. The fundamental architectural concept for the terrace houses and villas is the transposition of a contemporary idiom onto the traditional Chinese courtyard typology. The villas and townhouses are unabashedly modern but the building typology sets up a sequence of events and experiences that evoke the movement within and memory of the increasingly private traditional Chinese courtyard garden. The building materials reflect the primarily white and grey colour scheme of Chinese vernacular architecture while introducing local materials available in Hainan. For instance, walls rooting the architecture of the Terrace houses into the rolling mounds are clad in local volcanic Rock (huoshan Shi) and Boulders and Pebbles from the alluvial Plains of the River delta, forming Distinctive Monolithic elements that contextualise the Tectonic Forms within the Landscape.

These walls separating individual units sit perpendicularly on the undulating contours, responding to the terrain and framing views to the landscape. In addition, glass-clad volumes are inserted between walls to form inhabitation spaces, while residual spaces define internal landscaped courtyards. This organisation reinforces the dynamic and fluid quality of the site, allowing the landscape to permeate individual houses and enhancing the connectivity between house and site.

The love of a tamed and encapsulated nature is celebrated within the courtyards and light wells of the terrace houses and the expansive villas. An authentic 'Chinese Tropical' experience is created through architectural elements such as screens with Chinese motifs, and the play of light, texture and materials.