Beijing-based SYN Architects has offered a look inside their recently-completed Tiangang Village ‘Living Room’ in Baoding, China. The project saw the renovation and expansion of an existing village committee building, as well as the reactivation of surrounding buildings and outdoor spaces.

The original committee building was comprised of five single-story arches and porches, as well as sloping roofs and brick walls, all of which were largely hidden from public view. Taking the arches as inspiration, the design team expanded the building through an extension of the arches, creating a series of trumpet-shaped volumes with a thin, curving concrete shell structure.

In addition to the enlargement of the original five arches, the team also created a similarly-scaled arched volume along the wall facing the street, creating a public space adjacent to the building, and providing a welcoming entrance for visitors.

Inside the six groups of arched shells form a series of angular-shaped spaces, with further natural light gained from flat triangular skylights. The renovation of the "Living Room" fully retains the main structure of the original village committee building, where a café and children's activity area have been introduced on the upper and lower floors respectively. The extension created by the extruded arches meanwhile hosts a flexible exhibition area.

While a large arching facade of floor-to-ceiling glazing defines the building’s external architectural character, the "arch" as an architectural motif has continued inside through arched timber structural members across the new exhibition space, coffee shop, and children’s activity area. The internal environment is completed by a material blend of concrete, timber, red brick, and pressed grass panels to reflect its rural setting.

Aside from the extended ‘Living Room’ building, the team has also redeveloped an adjacent health clinic and public square. The health clinic employs a similar architectural language to its neighbor through the use of an arched floor to emphasize its presence. Meanwhile, the public square sees 12 separate rectangular patches of grass organized to represent the 12 zodiac signs. Each year, a new plant will grow on a different patch of grass.

“Through this project, the largely unnoticed formal features of the original building have been redefined by the architect and re-imagined as the architectural language of the new building, with the flat, arched openings having been extended into a three-dimensional spatial prototype,” SYN Architects said about the scheme. “The new and the old, the pragmatic and the innovative, can be seen here to collide, with the result being a series of brilliant new communal spaces for the Village, radiating energy and activity from the inside out.”