Bruce Lee memorabilia:

The client wanted to build a small vacation house in the suburban area of Shunde, P.R.C. He would like to display in this house his collection of Bruce Lee memorabilia, whose family history also traced back to this region.

a trapezoid:

The trapezoidal site tapers out from the west to east totaling 670 square meters.  It is the last parcel of land to be built upon for an exclusive residential community.  There is a sharp terrain change of over 9 meters along the south edge of the site, forming a miniature cliff. Beyond this point are two-storey vernacular houses. The north side faces back to this quiet residential community.

gallery and house:

With the short-term accommodation (vacation house) and the semi-public nature (display gallery) as the program, the house is divided into two distinctive yet connected parts. The gallery space is placed along the southern edge of the plot to form a visual anchor to define the edge of the community and a landscaped garden.  Since the displayed items, mostly first edition movie posters, are all very sensitive to natural lights, window openings are carefully placed along this telescopic-like gallery to allow natural light discreetly enter from various angles. These windows also framed distant views of the natural landscape of the surroundings.

Adjacent to the gallery is the living studio which is relatively straight-forward. The loft-like nature of the master bedroom overlooks the double height living room. One can have direct access to the garden from the living room. The openness of the garden is somewhat balanced by a sense of enclosure and privacy from the elongated massing, which also acts as a buffer and back-drop of the garden to the “world-beyond.”