Featuring the architecture firm’s signature undulations and parametric curves, the new Daxing Airport in Beijing by Zaha Hadid Architects will accommodate 72 million travelers per year by 2025. Launching on October 1st to coincide with China’s 70th anniversary, the airport is nicknamed “the starfish” for reasons that become obvious when you see it photographed from above.

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Boasting the world’s largest single-building terminal, Daxing Airport was developed to ease congestion at the existing Beijing Airport. But don’t expect to fly through it anytime soon: it’s basically getting a soft launch, with only China United Airlines flying domestic flights there through October 27. Other Chinese and international airlines will slowly start scheduling flights through Daxing after that, with relocation expected fo finish in 2021.

“Echoing principles within Chinese architecture that organize interconnected spaces around a central courtyard, the terminal’s design guides all passengers seamlessly through the relevant departure, arrival or transfer zones towards the grand courtyard at its center – a multi-layered meeting space at the heart of the terminal,” say the architects.

“Eight flowing forms within the terminal’s vaulted roof reach to the ground to support the structure and bring natural light within, directing all passengers towards the central courtyard. Natural light also enters the terminal via a network of linear skylights that provide an intuitive system of navigation throughout the building, guiding passengers to and from their departure gates.”

“The compact radial configuration of the terminal allows a maximum number of aircraft to be parked directly at the terminal with minimum distances from the center of the building, providing exceptional convenience for passengers and flexibility in operations. 79 gates with airbridges connect directly to the terminal while BDIA’s facilities can quickly process the passengers of six full A380 aircraft simultaneously.”

The new airport’s code is PKX. It gets a portion of its power from solar panels, and its centralized heating with waste heat recovery is supported by a ground-source heat pump system. The airport also features rainwater collection and the natural storage, permeation and purification of up to 2.8 million cubic meters of water in new wetlands, lakes and streams to counter the “heat island” effect on the local microclimate in summer.

Building booms around the world can render entire neighborhoods unrecognizable in a matter of days, demolishing historic structures to make way for new developments. In cities like Beijing, where older architecture such as “siheyuan” courtyard houses stand out for their uniqueness and beauty, the transition from traditional to contemporary can feel all the more jarring. Urban development is all but inevitable to manage growing populations, but for many onlookers, it’s sad to see the past bulldozed in favor of new buildings that don’t even acknowledge the area’s cultural and architectural legacy.

Many of Beijing’s older buildings fell in a frenzy of demolition throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Traditional “hutongs,” or ancient city alleys lined with siheyuan residences, had fallen into disrepair and often lacked basic services and sanitation. City planners reportedly saw the historic, hutong-filled core of the city surrounding Tianenmen Square and the Forbidden City as prime real estate. In the ‘90s, about 600 hutong were destroyed every year, displacing roughly 500,000 residents. In place of those neighborhoods built during the Ming Dynasty came glittering skyscrapers and eight-lane highways.

Only a few hundred complete courtyard houses remain, down from the 3,000 that stood during the 1980s. But among those that still exist, an interesting trend is taking root: modernization projects that preserve and honor the historic structures while making them suitable for 21st century lifestyles. The best examples of respectful Chinese courtyard house renovations repair and maintain the existing elements of the siheyuan, keep the courtyards open to the outdoors and add new complementary elements that augment the usefulness of the original buildings without diminishing their character.

Transforming Formerly Hidden Courtyards into Inclusive Spaces

Designing homes around courtyards is an ancient tradition in China, with evidence of walled-in yards going as far back as the Shang Dynasty (approx. 1700 – 1100 BCE). The houses themselves opened out onto the alleyways outside, creating tranquil and private outdoor spaces protected from the eyes of strangers. This layout is similar to that of Beijing itself, which began as a walled city arranged like a checkerboard according to Confucian code. Each courtyard contained at least two trees along with water features and caged birds. Originally, each siheyuan was occupied by a single (often wealthy) family, but over time, they came to be inhabited by groups of families forming their own tiny villages. Many have since been converted into businesses.

The walls of a hutong “can be seen as a boundary between public and private venues,” acknowledges the firm MINOR Lab, which completed this renovation in the Dongcheng District in 2017 updating an old hutong with lots of transparent glass, translucent textured acrylic panels for privacy and warm wood. But their project, like many others, transforms these former residences into spaces that are meant for community use.

“Within the walls remains an inward and enclosed space, however, the yard resembles a vast container, letting in sky, wind, sunlight, air and sound. The crowns of the two grand gingko trees are the flowing roof in the open air, overlapping layers of grey tiles. The exterior space under the trees connects to the interior one underneath the four roofs, floating and exchanging in a continuous way.”

An interesting project by the firm CAA explores the continuation of multi-family and multi-generational hutong traditions in a way that can help support the owner’s aging parents, who have Alzheimer’s Disease. CAA kept the hutong’s original wooden structure and added an additional steel roof, creating larger windows and skylights in the existing structures to make them brighter. The layout of the courtyard and the surrounding houses gives each generation their own private living space, but they’re connected to each other, and the flat, accessible courtyard allows the client’s mother to get around in her wheelchair.

“Tea House in Hutong” by ARCHSTUDIO is a striking example of the bolder approach. Forced to demolish parts that were too unsafe to keep, the architects added new wood and metal structures and created more enclosed spaces protected from the elements by adding a white-painted concrete roof. Openings to the outdoors are glassed in like atriums, and you can still get a sense of the original space as you gaze across the courtyard despite all of these alterations.

The same firm took an old siheyuan in Beijing’s Dashilar Area and transformed it into a public space with a dramatic, river-like undulating surface of grey brick that flows in and out of the interior and exterior spaces. Curved walls hide auxiliary spaces like the kitchen, bathrooms, private guest rooms and storage areas while visually connecting communal spaces like the dining room and reception to the courtyard. It’s not subtle by any means and it doesn’t shy away from ultramodern touches, but somehow the combination of old and new still feels cohesive.

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Art Of The Chinese Courtyard Respectful Renovations Keep Hutongs Alive

Passing through historic Beijing neighborhoods, seeing only the preserved street-facing facade, you’d never know that surprisingly modern structures contrast with aging surfaces within the courtyards just out of sight. Instead of just demolishing the ‘hutong’ courtyard houses found only in this Chinese city, architects are adapting them to modern life, slotting houses, hostels, museums, tea houses, cinemas and more under the existing roofs.

Tea House by Archstudio

In a truly stunning adaptation, Archstudio has completed a tea house and cafe within an existing hutong house, enclosing it from above with new roofs while leaving atriums open for bamboo and other greenery. The intervention connects the site’s five existing structures with a glazed corridor following the path of the original courtyard, forming three tea houses with their own unique views.

Twisting Courtyard by Archstudio

A river of glossy grey bricks streams through the courtyard of a Siheyuan house in the Paizihutong area of Beijing, upgrading the historic architecture with spaces that meet modern requirements of living. Archstudio‘s stunning pathway arches over the new volumes and even continues right into the dining room as part of the floor.

Mini Hostel Inside Hutong by ZAO / standardarchitecture

The firm ZAO / standard architecture inserted a small hostel inside a renovated Beijing hutong, exploring the potential of small-scale accommodations that slot right into the city’s existing architecture instead of displacing it. The glazed facades of volumes made of board-formed concrete project into the courtyard, facing each other (in some cases, with views of toilets, much to the horror of many Westerners looking at these images.) “The result is an architectural operation that brings back the courtyard as generator of the program, as it activates the building by creating a direct relationship with its urban context.”

Lai Yard House by Minggu Design

Tucked away behind weathered brick facades near the ancient city wall of Beijing, this courtyard home was crumbling. Minggu Design protects and preserves the original Chinese architecture while enhancing and adapting it for the 21st century, inserting volumes made of wood and glass to complement the surroundings without overpowering them. They used the new volumes to intentionally block and filter light to the original interior, creating a tranquil cave-like feel.

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Preserving Architectural Gems 8 Beijing Hutong Plug Ins Update Historic Shells

Putting architecture into the hands of the people in a country where home ownership is typically out of reach, this studio has some incredibly innovative ideas, from modular units that ‘plug in’ to the envelopes of historic buildings to unexpected uses for cheap and plentiful materials. These 10 projects by People’s Architecture Office explore the convenience of prefabrication, multipurpose objects and the brilliance of simplicity while still offering structures that are bright, fresh, airy and comfortable.

Courtyard House

In Beijing, a whole lot of historic architecture has simply been cast aside in favor of newer, cleaner, more spacious suburban housing. Once-vibrant neighborhoods lacking in simple infrastructure like sewer systems are being left behind and neglected, growing more and more dilapidated. PAO has one solution: modern modular units that simply ‘plug in’ to the existing architecture to make it more livable. In the case of ‘Courtyard House,’ the original buildings are used like an envelope for newer structures that can be quickly, cheaply and easy assembled on-site.

Plugin House

The firm carried the same concept over to ‘Plugin House,’ which slots onto a tiny, awkwardly shaped plot in a traditional ‘hutong’ alleyway. The prefabricated panels used to create these structures already have insulation, plumbing, windows, doors, wiring, interior and exterior finishes built in, and they snap and lock together with no more than a single hex wrench. People who no prior construction experience can put one of these houses together in 24 hours, and it costs less than $10,000.

Plugin Tower

Plugin Tower is another PAO project that easily fits into existing urban environments, and gets around the difficulty of stable housing in China, where land is held exclusively by the government and building private homes is only affordable to the wealthy. This structure requires no foundation, so it doesn’t need planning approval, and it can be picked up and moved to a new location. The prefabricated steel frame comes in a kit of parts, and the modular living units just plug right in. You can rearrange it however you like and expand it when necessary.

Container Pavilion

Shipping containers are cheap, easy to procure, highly stackable, customizable and a breeze to transport, so it’s no surprise that PAO has made use of them. This cantilevered pavilion consists of six yellow units overlapping six red units in a perpendicular arrangement, creating shaded areas on the ground and a series of rooftop recreation spaces. The ends of each unit are glazed for views of the city and sightless through the entire building.

Hutong Insert: Beijing Culture and Art Center

PAO uses its skills in inserting modular units into historic structures in their proposal for the Beijing Culture and Art Center, set within a traditional hutong house. A competition to design the project called for a solution that would renovate the building while retaining as much of its original character as possible; PAO’s proposal makes it easy to add lots of interior space without disturbing much of the outer structure at all.

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Architecture For The People 10 Subversive And Imaginative Designs For China

What sounded like a long shot attempt to literally suck some of the suffocating smog out of China’s sky is actually working, according to updates on the Smog Free Project, which installed an air-vacuuming tower in a Beijing square. Created by Studio Roosegaarde, the tower has been up for over 40 days with China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection keeping track of the results. This week, they announced that the air around the tower is 55 percent cleaner than before after scrubbing 30 million cubic meters of air – equal to the volume of 10 Beijing National Stadiums.

The Smog Free Tower made its debut during Beijing Design Week 2016, with Studio Roosegaarde announcing plans to compress collected smog particles into ‘smog free’ jewelry as a tangible souvenir of the project. Standing 23 feet (7 meters) tall, the tower is the world’s largest air purifier, capable of capturing and collecting more than 75% of the pm2.5 and pm10 airborne smog particles and emitting a circular zone of clean air.

Six vents on each side of the super-sized purifier suck in air at a volume of 30,000 cubic meters per hour, about the size of 100 swimming pools, through a patented ionization technique that captures tiny particles without creating ozone in the process. The first tests in Rotterdam earlier this year showed that the filter cleaned surrounding air by 75 percent. Smog is much less of a problem there than it is in Beijing, so it’s no surprise that the machine didn’t do quite as well in China.

Daan Roosegaarde sees his creation as the beginning of a war on smog, indicating that larger towers are planned in the future and will be expanded to additional cities. One potential limitation may be that the filters are reportedly so expensive, the firm won’t reveal their cost – but all technology has to start somewhere, so maybe there’s a solution for that somewhere down the line.