Slit House | Atelier Zhanglei | Architecture

Slit House Atelier Zhanglei

"Fits to its historical context formulated in begining of 20’s in centre part of Nanjing city, Slit house express itself in harmony with surroundings in the new form of concrete facade. The entire structure & facade even roof are made from concrete with 5cm horizontal wood textile strip which shares the same scale with neibour buildings of brick built almost 100 years ago. Even we used almost half of world’s cement in China, Slit house is the first real concrete building in Nanjing, the city which built also 1300 highrise concrete structure towers in last 25 years.

Showing the tranparency of house in its public part with deep slit, Stail is used in this project to link two parts which has half floor height difference, then made 2 floor height living area and 1.5 floor dining area. With limited openings to east & west nearby neibour." World-Architects

”Zhang Lei copied the massing of adjacent garden houses from the 1920s, but abstracted their form and used concrete instead of gray brick. He changed materials, he says, because gray brick is no longer made in Nanjing, but concrete is. He used strips of wood just 2 inches wide for the concrete formwork, giving the material the texture almost of a fine textile. A zigzagging band of glass cleaves the 2,900-square-foot house in two and brings daylight inside.”
Architectural Record

photos by Iwan Baan