Osmanthus Spa
This is a renovation of a 1930s semi-detached garden house in the former French Concession of Shanghai. The first storey including the garden and part of the second storey were renovated into a spa. The other half of the second storey and the third storey are still occupied by other families. So the entrance foyer, staircase and garden are shared between the spa and these two other families, making it a peculiar condition where the circulation of these three groups of occupants, as well as residential and commercial activities, are all mixed.
This is a mixed condition which we had previously advocated in our Former French Concession Urbanism studies of 2011, where instead of the typical replacement of existing fabric with new big high-rise developments, we proposed a partial insertion of new low-rise high density built-form in the manner of layers of ribbons or contours of different functions, that weave flexibly around existing buildings. Each layer would be for residential, commercial purposes or are green strips for relaxation and relief. Each layer is designed to be only 4 meters deep, such that walking from one layer to the next, one quickly passes through a succession of differences: a bodily traversing of concrete urban richness. Instead of being too nostalgic about preserving all things old, we carefully select what to keep and what to replace with the intention to form new relationships between what is there and what is to be added: new intimate paths, new openness, new integrated-ness, new disruptions, new complementaries and new contrasts.
Customers walk into the spa through plain black metal gates from the street into a new rich condition. The reception room is to the left and one special garden spa room is to the right. To get to spa rooms in the old building, one walks along the walls around the garden. One can view the relationships between the new rooms, the garden and the existing old house through different perspectives. This orchestrated bodily movement renews the experience of the typical French Concession environment: old and new, this layered with that, here looking at there.
