Lake Dragon | Ronald Lu & Partners

Lake Dragon Residential Development is a high end, low density residential project situated in Guangzhou, China. The development takes its name from the nearby Nine Dragon Lake, an area of natural beauty. In keeping with the outstanding natural beauty of the site, the guiding concept behind the project was to ensure that residents feel that they are in the “garden”, integrating open views wherever possible into the private garden of each villa or across the golf courses. Chinese architecture is always about man’s relationship with the universe, recreation of natural setting is essential as a base for the design. Each villa incorporates frame/portal features on the elevations framing the different views and giving individual character. To achieve the design concept of merging a sequential experience into its functions yet merging to its setting, the architects have planned the functions in stratified layers. The layering of spaces allow each function to be visually linked and hence the physical boundary of interior and exterior becomes blurred. Modern interpretation of Chinese courtyard houses is an unique feature of the project, it is the revival of the Chinese vernacular architectural model of the siheyuan, the traditional courtyard houses that still form the hutong districts of old Beijing. Large villas of over 875 square meters are designed in the form of a quadrangle with traditional courtyards and side houses, but unlike the closed, inward-looking courtyards of the past, the Architect has instead created a transparent and outward focus that embraces the surrounding open landscape.