Cactus House

The project is located in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China. The existing house is built in 2007, it is very close to Dian Lake and West Mountain. Yunnan is well-known for its good sunny weather throughout the whole year, thus it has a nickname as spring city. So the climate is really suitable for cactus and plants growing, which is the biggest hobby of our client’s Mr. Yonghong Liu and his wife Mrs. Shiyu Wen. When we got this commission, the first request from them is that “we want to built a large cactus green house and it has to be attached to the existing house.” Also, the existing house has few problems that they found out, because they have lived in this house for more than a decade, for example, the kitchen is too small, the bathroom on ground floor is located in a very inconvenient location, from the indoor space people cannot see the garden, etc.



The design approach is to figure out the form of the cactus greenhouse and strategies for those problem. We use the CLT as the supporting structure and 6m-long translucent U-channel glass as the façade to prevent the neighbor from seeing inside the house, and also it creates very beautiful diffusing lighting effect. Polycarbonate Hollow Sheet is used on the upper part of the façade, because is very light weighted which is suitable for opening panel, so it can provide natural ventilation inside the cactus green house.



We use large amount of earthy color brick on the exterior wall and interior wall, the same material is used through the outside and inside, we want to create a perception that the exterior and interior is a continuous space, there is no sharp boundary between them. Because we want to treat the garden also as a ‘indoor’ space, this is inspired by Katsura Imperial Villa in Japan, we believe this ambiguous transition from garden to indoor space give people a free and cozy perception.