Second Place Winner
How to grow old
Design by
Ziye Pan, Fengyin Wang & Run Lin
“Extremely interesting and well-conceived. The project demonstrates a strong integration of biophilic elements through the use of green terraces and diverse vegetation, providing both aesthetic and functional benefits. The design carefully considers the use of eco-friendly materials and sustainable practices to reduce environmental impact. The presence of terraces for cultivation and social gatherings fosters a sense of community and well-being.”
-Antonella Marzi
Ziye Pan, Fengyin Wang & Run Lin
Ziye Pan, Fengyin Wang & Run Lin
Celebrating Creativity & Vision
Winner’s Spotlight: An Exclusive Interview
Discover the story behind the victory — from concept to creation.
Could you share your initial inspiration behind your design concept for this competition?
China is currently experiencing a rapid process of population ageing, which presents significant challenges to social and economic development. Additionally, the quality of life for the elderly in high-density cities has become a major concern. High-rise buildings in cities may lead to issues such as social isolation, limited activities, and reduced contact with nature for the elderly. The team combines biophilic design with aging and suggests that this approach may offer multiple benefits for the daily living, disease recuperation, and spiritual healing of the elderly population. These benefits include a healthy and livable environment, the use of natural elements to alleviate anxiety and depression, and encouragement for the elderly to participate in outdoor activities. With a research-oriented approach, the team aims to design a biophilic apartment for the elderly in a noisy and crowded city. The goal is to address the physical and mental health issues faced by the elderly in their later years. Additionally, the project aims to provide insights for high-rise residential buildings in high-density cities.
Biophilic integration was a central theme of this competition. How did you approach incorporating biophilic elements into your design to enhance the well-being and comfort of the residents?
Our team begins by considering the overall form and layout of the building, utilising open and curved building plans and atriums. These elements are staggered to create well-lit terraces where various types of plants can be grown. The building's overall design flows organically, providing a contrast to the typical box-shaped buildings in the surrounding city. Furthermore, the building's white appearance and open design allow for increased natural light and ventilation, enhancing the elderly's connection with the outdoors. Additionally, the team has incorporated various types of vertical landscapes within the building, featuring natural elements at different heights, such as a water curtain cinema, light and shadow forest, planting garden, and bird-watching platform from bottom to top. Additionally, considering the limited daily activity range of the residents, this can provide them with more opportunities to experience nature. The use of small, lightweight construction residential units instead of traditional walls can improve the privacy of elderly residents, save building materials, and bring them closer to nature and the countryside.
Sustainability was a key aspect of the competition objectives. Can you elaborate on the eco-friendly materials, energy systems, and water conservation strategies you implemented in your design?
The architectural design emphasizes practicality and flexibility through a "1+1" combination mode, consisting of a main space with a side length of 6m and an area of 36㎡, and an auxiliary space with a side length of 3m and an area of 9㎡. The former, designed as an accessible square floor plan, aims to create a seamless and continuous flow of space to meet the living needs of elderly individuals or couples of different ages, including those who use wheelchairs or other assistive devices. The latter, serving as an auxiliary space, can be used as a temporary caregiver's room or a visiting room for children, positioned near the main structure. This approach enhances the adaptability of the building's area to accommodate various types of elderly users.
In terms of building structure and materials, the residential units utilize wood as the structural framework, polycarbonate panels for the roofing, recyclable metal for the building's exterior, and lightweight wooden partitions for the interior walls, maximizing the renewable and recyclable use of building materials to reduce waste.
For natural lighting, the symmetry of the square floor plan provides a stable and balanced atmosphere for both the interior and exterior environments, while also allowing natural light to enter from multiple angles, enhancing the openness and transparency of the space. Polycarbonate panels, used for roofing, achieve an 89% light transmission rate, comparable to glass. During the day, natural light can penetrate the interior, ensuring natural illumination. At night, the light from inside the building can illuminate the exterior space, maximizing the use of natural light and reducing the dependency on artificial lighting and air conditioning.
Regarding insulation and thermal retention, the building incorporates green roofs and partial green floors, providing excellent insulation for the interior spaces, absorbing carbon dioxide, reducing rainwater runoff, and increasing biodiversity. The polycarbonate panels effectively block the intense ultraviolet rays common in southern regions, are durable for long-term use, and have excellent thermal performance for effective insulation and warmth retention.
In building components, the residential units feature large sliding windows on the balconies, which can be fully opened during the summer to transform the interior into an open semi-outdoor space, enhancing natural ventilation and connecting with the surrounding environment. In winter, these can be completely closed, turning the balcony into an enclosed part of the interior and promoting cross-seasonal natural ventilation, thereby reducing reliance on air conditioning.
Functionality and comfort were highlighted as important criteria. How did you ensure that your design provided a functional layout, ample storage, and comfortable living areas while still prioritizing biophilic principles?
In terms of functionality and comfort, we adopt a separate approach, that is, the parts that meet the basic functional needs of the elderly are assembled in a personalized house that can be freely adjusted, so that the functional space is satisfied in the most efficient way. Comfort considerations are mainly reflected in each large floor, we set up four theme floor space, combined with the biophile way to give the elderly the greatest comfort and satisfaction.
Considering the urban context, what challenges did you face in integrating nature-inspired elements into an urban environment, and how did you overcome them?
The site of the design is located in the urban village of Guangzhou. With the process of urbanization, the available land in Guangzhou is becoming less and less, which is difficult to meet the needs of people's normal life. Meanwhile, the backward infrastructure and poor ecological environment of the urban village are not friendly to the elderly living here. Therefore, the design first makes efficient use of urban land through vertical spatial arrangement. At the same time, vertical greening arrangement is carried out in the periphery of the building, which can not only regulate the environment of the building itself, but also play a role in regulating the microclimate of the entire urban village.
Aesthetics played a significant role in this competition. How did you strike a balance between modern design aesthetics and the organic qualities of biophilic elements in your design?
We believe that modern design aesthetics can assist biophile elements to intervene in the design in a more natural way, for example, when considering the combination of natural light and shadow with the building, we use translucent membrane materials placed behind the plants. When the sun shines on the plant, the shadow of the plant will be projected on the membrane material, and a small number of light beams will penetrate the membrane into the room, forming a modern design aesthetics and reflecting the biophile.
Reflecting on the competition experience, what were the most rewarding aspects of participating in Yearning to Breathe 2023, and how do you think this competition has influenced your approach to architecture and design?
We believe that the greatest value of the theme of this competition is that it awakens the public, including the participants and the audience, to the value of humanized living space, and the competition itself shows the public and the participants a variety of human-based design theories and methods; Such meaningful competitions not only make us understand more relevant theoretical knowledge, but also make us think more fully about the possibility of pro-biological design when designing.
Looking ahead, how do you envision the impact of biophilic design on urban living, and what role do you see architects and designers playing in promoting this approach to sustainable and harmonious urban development?
The future urban life is destined to be more sustainable and harmonious green life. The biophilic design provides a design idea that can be continuously updated for the architectural design that is more in line with sustainable and harmonious development. Under the condition that this idea can become a consensus, every part of the city can maximize the comfortable space for people. Cities are havens created by human beings, and architects and designers are their ghostwriters. Urban design is not only the materialization of materials, but also the shaping of life colors, that is, architectural design and designers participate in the design of people's lives
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