Drunken Ink Hall

Project LocationChengdu, Sichuan

Floor Area2,922 sqm              Building Area2,535 sqm

Design Period2010—2011      Status: Built       Category: Experimental


The moving, flowing, penetrating and floating together with form, space and roof, shape an everchanging form of graceful Drunken Ink Hall.

The concept is inspired by Su Shi's lyric poem Shi Cangshu Drunken Ink Hall (Shi Cangshu’s Study of Enchanting Scent of Ink) We see only the glow, but not the shape. Form and its shadow caught over water is experienced throughout the flow of the space. space and form is free as freeform calligraphy, with floating roof reflected casually over the pool.

The design was originally conceived as a neat rectangular with a layout of traditional four-courses courtyard. Due to the nature of the skew site, the designs of courtyards are distorted and reshaped accordingly into a free and dynamic flow of forms, as those in traditional Chinese gardens. Through water pond, the continuously floating roof is absorbed and becomes part of flow of the courtyards.