MAD Architects, led by Ma Yansong, made one step forward with their “Beijing 2050” proposal. The new step, named “Hutong Bubble 218”, is the restoration and reconstruction, featuring metallic “bubbles” embedded on the rooftop of a 305 sqm traditional courtyard house that dates back to the Qing Dynasty.

“Hutong Bubble 218” is located in Beijing's Qianmen East area, and MAD aims to demonstrate how small-scale interventions can create new spaces and programs for the local community, as a means of revitalizing the Chinese capital’s old neighborhoods that have been confronted with degradation and demolition as a result of rapid development, as well as form a dialogue between old and new.
Hutong Bubble 218, more than other projects, expresses and sums up this research precisely thanks to its way of coming to terms with tradition, magically becoming innovation and the near future.

The building was the city's first international hospital for over a century before being converted into a residence that housed over 20 families.  As the courtyard was restructured multiple times and residents created their own makeshift additions, structural degradation started to occur, which eventually led to residents moving out.

Teetering over the edge of the rooftop into the front courtyard, one of the reflective bubbles functions as a meeting room and shared workspace, and connects the first and second floors with a staircase. The second bubble simply seems to "land" on the roof.
 


 
 

Project description by MAD Architects

In 2006, at the Venice Architecture Biennale, MAD Architects proposed ideas for the future ambitions of Beijing, whose urban landscape, as a result social and economic developments, had started to alter, eroding the city’s delicate urban tissue. “Beijing 2050” imagined different scenarios for the city, including the ‘Future of Hutongs’. With the ideology that progress does not necessarily require large-scale change and construction, MAD conceived a network of metallic bubbles to be cultivated in Beijing’s historic neighborhoods. Inserted into the city’s existing urban fabric, they were envisioned to attract new people, activities and resources back to these aging and neglected communities.
 

“This is a micro-utopian ideal. I hope that these bubbles will serve as vital newborn cells, giving the traditional hutong new life, and revitalizing the community.”

Ma Yansong

In 2009, MAD’s first hutong bubble was realized in Beibingmasi hutong. Now, ten years later, “Hutong Bubble 218” has emerged.

“Hutong Bubble 218” is the result of MAD’s participation in the Old City Renewal Research Program which launched in 2014. Co-sponsored by Tianjie Group, the Beijing Center for the Arts and Beijing Architectural Design and Research Institute, the initiative invited domestic and international architects to renovate several sites in Beijing’s historic city center. For this research project, MAD focused on four principles: historic preservation, urban regeneration, re-energizing the community spirit and small-scale intervention.

Located in the Qianmen East area, close to important cultural landmarks like the Forbidden City and Tian’anmen Square, “Hutong Bubble 218” embeds itself into the neighborhood just off Xidamochang alley. The building was erected in the latter part of the Qing Dynasty. Covering an area of 469 sqm, it originally served as the city’s first international hospital for over 100 years, before being converted into a residence inhabiting more than 20 families. Overtime, the courtyard underwent restructuring on multiple occasions. Residents also created their own make-shift additions, eventually leading to structural degradation. With the gradual decline in living standards, the building lost its charm, deteriorating and becoming vacant, as most of the households moved out.
 

MAD’s design introduces several sculptural art objects – ‘bubbles’ – onto the site.


One connects the first and second floors with a staircase. Puncturing through the roof landscape, it emerges onto the terrace and functions as an independent meeting room/shared workspace, and flows over the edge into the front courtyard. Another bubble appears as if it has landed on the rooftop of the building. While they may seem foreign in their historic context, a mysterious aura emanates from these futuristic and surrealistic forms. Their smooth mirrored surfaces reflect the ancient buildings, trees and sky within the vicinity, blending into the environment. Instead of interrupting the existing urban fabric, the old and new complement one another.

MAD’s scheme not only realizes a new construction, but also conserves and restores the authentic architectural aesthetic of the courtyard building to their original glory. The aesthetic temperament of the old Beijing courtyard is retained through the use of gray bricks, which have come to define hutong building constructions. The glazing along the street front has been replaced with single transparent glass, maximizing the amount of natural light that floods the interior. From here, no one suspects the existence of the bubbles beyond.

The inner courtyard was restored following the original layout of the space. The wood filigree panels that lined the inner courtyard have been stripped of their stains and returned to their original luster, with replacement sections reproduced with the same size and motif. The pattern and arrangement of the wooden door and window frames has also been retained, forming an elevation that is open.


As Chinese writer Lao She once said: “The beauty of old Beijing lies in the gaps and voids between the buildings.”


“Hutong Bubble 218” demonstrates how art and architecture can come together to renew a city. Through the insertion of small-scale interventions, people are attracted to return to traditional life, metabolizing the old district and creating a conversation between tradition and the future, nature and humanity, expressed in a freehand artistic way.

 

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Beijing-born architect Ma Yansong is recognized as an important voice in a new generation of architects. Since the founding of MAD in 2004, his works in architecture and art have been widely published and exhibited. He graduated from the Beijing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture. Ma attended Yale University after receiving the American Institute of Architects Scholarship for Advanced Architecture Research in 2001 and holds a masters degree in Architecture from Yale. He has since taught architecture at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.

Ma Yansong was awarded the 2006 Architecture League Young Architects Award. In 2008 he was selected as one of the twenty most influential Young Architects today by ICON magazine and Fast Company named him one of the ten most creative people in architecture in 2009. In 2010 he became the first architect from China to receive a RIBA fellowship.

“I work with emotion and with the context. When I design a building, I close my eyes and feel as if I saw a virtual world which lays half way between the city, the nature and the land. It goes from large scale to small scale. Many things travel in front of my eyes; I feel them and try to find the way to express my feelings. The language I use is the least important of it all. It does not matter whether they are straight lines, curves... I only intend for people to feel the same or to find something unexpected” says Ma Yansong. “MAD is an attitude, a posture towards architecture, towards society. Through our work we want people to be inspired by a place through local nature, time and space”, he states.

Photo © Daniel J.Allen

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MAD Office, Beijing, China. MAD is a Beijing-based architecture design office dedicated to creating innovative projects. The firm combines a sophisticated design philosophy with advanced technology in addressing and furthering issues in contemporary architecture and urbanity.

The firm has been the recipient of numerous awards including the 2006 Architectural League of New York's Young Architects Forum Award.

MAD's ongoing projects include the international competition-winning Absolute Tower in Toronto, Canada; The Tianjin Sinosteel International Plaza, a 320M tall tower in Tianjin, China; the Mongolian Museum in Inner Mongolia, China, and a private villa in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The firm has also won numerous international design competitions, including the 2006 Absolute Tower Competition in Toronto; the 2005 Solar Plaza Competition in Guangzhou, China, and the 2004 Shanghai National Software Outsourcing Base.

MAD's work has been published worldwide, and the office has also presented its designs in a series of exhibitions. In 2006, MAD was shown at the ‘MAD in China' exhibition in Venice during the Architecture Biennial, and the ‘MAD Under Construction' exhibition at the Tokyo Gallery in Beijing. In March of 2007, MAD will be shown at ‘MAD.exe' an exhibition at the Danish Architecture Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Ma Yansong, Yosuke Hayano and Qun Dand.

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Published on: November 23, 2019
Cite: "MAD designed a Second Hutong Bubble in Beijing’s Historic Neighborhoods" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/mad-designed-a-second-hutong-bubble-beijings-historic-neighborhoods> ISSN 1139-6415
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