1/15
View from street.
2/15
Courtyard with library beyond.
3/15
Living Level 3: roofscape + artificial horizon.
4/15
View from street.
5/15
Lap pool and exterior privacy well.
6/15
Folded steel plate stair room + lava rock hearth beyond.
7/15
Living zone.
8/15
Library with operable round window constellation.
9/15
Living Levels 1, 2, and 3 with light gardens.
10/15
Internalization of landscape.
11/15
Structural grid bias + light garden distribution.
12/15
Massing studies.
13/15
Exterior elevations with south-sliced roof plane.
14/15
House section through Light Garden 2.
15/15
Stair room + skylight.

ORDOS 100 > VILLA 007

Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd., Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China

Situated on an arid grassland site, RL’s Villa 007 is one of 100 villas curated by artist Ai Weiwei and organized around a new Ordos cultural center which includes an adjacent museum and artist housing. A traditional three-bay grid running normal to the odd-angled west façade organizes three landscape courtyards that draw the surrounding site into the living areas.

Villa 007 challenges the normative practice of consolidating residential programs into separate service, living and sleeping blocks. By distributing living spaces on each level, interspersing them with sleeping areas and service areas, residents and guests are encouraged to seek a broader range of experiences within the home. In an unconscious act of domestic migration, the home-owner will meander from space to space, drawn by the scale and material character of specific living spaces that resonate with their mood, as well as with the time of day and time of year.