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Propositions and Self-Propositions – In the summer of 2023, the Jushi Guang Art Ecological Corridor took root in Xiaonanhai Town, Longyou County, Quzhou City, Zhejiang Province. The Table 18, which runs parallel to the Gu River, is located amid the Corridor. It comprises a new pavilion along the field paths and a renovated farm warehouse by the roadside. These two elements coexist and complement each other.
At the beginning of the design, both site and function were unconfined; we were at a loss for a while. As part of the engagement of art, the project has a natural inherent demand for abstraction. Visual tension must be separated from the contemporary rural context, but we do not want to exaggerate this. It should have a relationship with the site and the community regarding aesthetics and content. It indeed serves tourists, but it is not about novelty seeking. Countless counties in China may appear homogeneous, but when you look closer, you will discover that they each have their particular beauty, which is often overlooked and underrepresented. At Longyou, we hope this is an opportunity to explore the differentiation and rejuvenation of homogeneous townships on the ground rather than a platform for architects to shout.
After determining the function, we focused on three things when choosing the venue: first, mountains, buildings, and farmland landscape, all of which are horizontally spread out along the east-west direction of the Qu River, and we hoped that the venue would have the same qualities; second, the venue should be close to the farmland, which is naturally in line with the theme of food; and third, the venue should have existing buildings that could be transformed; Third, there shall be existing structures on site that may be renovated. Fortunately, we discovered a field walk parallel to the Qu River, with a derelict farm warehouse along the road. On the west side, the warehouse’s wall confronts the main arrival path, while on the south side, the Qu River waterfront is separated by woodland and a new town road. To the north lies a considerable expanse of farmland, over which the field road winds, with rolling hills visible on both sides.
The Warehouse – The reconfigured warehouse primarily serves indoor dining and meal preparation. However, it is also suitable for exhibitions, gatherings, resting, and seminars, with people coming and going in various settings. The building is a typical example of a field, embodying the memories of previously intensive farming labor. Therefore, we did not make many alterations to the overall shape, except adding a new main entrance; the other original holes and old doors and windows were also kept. The new metal roof, which eliminates the leaks in the original roof, is cantilevered outwards on the west side of the building, creating a grey space beneath the eaves that emphasizes the main entry.
The small house’s original roof was no longer functional, and the existing walls were too weak to sustain the new roofing system. To protect the walls from future damage, we installed a new steel and timber structural system on the outside of the ancient house’s facade, with columns gently removed from the existing walls to support the beams and roof independently. We kept the original roof beams to create a memory of the ancient walls without breaking their existing tie stability. The old external structural system visually connects with the long table regarding proportionality.
Because of the new apertures on the west side of the wall and the higher wall’s poor stability, new glued timber ring beams were added to hoop the upper half of the wall, increasing the overall strength of the old building. A natural rock about 2m5 in diameter was discovered near the riverbank in Tingtangxu Village and transported to the spot, where it was attached and stabilized with a slender tie rod to the overhanging beam.
18 – The warehouse is already there, and the long table adds the finishing touch. This 18-meter-long flat surface serves as a conduit for connecting with the local population along the 4-meter-wide field road. Continuing the restaurant’s purpose, the long table extends across the landscape, creating a more natural and public setting. The 18m length takes the scale experience to the extreme, hosting more anticipated gatherings and sharing on an anti-everyday scale. The slightly lower height also allows the long table to directly perceive the body, resulting in a large wooden surface for sitting and lying. Amid the vast site’s grass and trees, we hope this table will take on a new pose, possibly floating, gently caressing the earth it sits on, as if distinct from reality, moving between the mundane and the imaginative.
The consistent span of the construction of the long table space on the overall sense of aggregation has a more substantial impact on the suspension of the way to lessen this separation while also ensuring the continuity of the roof. The lightweight tie bar, if present, indirectly limits space while also occasionally assisting toddlers in climbing up and down. The enclosure and implicit divides above the long table shape how people use the table daily.
From 18 to 42 – To further formally, structurally, and experientially broaden the table’s borders, we stretched the 18-meter-long table to become a 42-meter-long public system. People can meet, picnic, sit, nap, swing, and admire the beauty here, and the field path transitions from a passing space to a place to remain, with more possibilities emerging as time goes on.
The wooden system on both sides of the long table complements the stability of the large-span steel structure in the center and meets the resting needs of villagers and visitors. The swing cloth hanging under the roof is an unexpected favorite, and the 42m public interface, like the shadow cast by the farmhouse in the field under the slanting sun, describes each other in detail. We connect and respond to the two structures at the main entrance to form an integrated expression. The farmhouse serves as an introduction that opens up the situation, which was here before we came. It eventually returns to its origins on the ground and carries the root of all logic.
Mountain & River – Environmental factors determine the overall roof form. As we consider the implicit geometric correspondence and the mimetic relationship between natural geography and artificial things, the long table along the road mirrors the unfolding of the water and mountains, attempting to connect and visualize the delights of the scenery here.
The roof of the promenade is sloped in a one-way profile: to the north, the mountains and fields are elevated to provide a view of the landscape; to the south, the gable end is depressed to block out visual clutter in the direction of the driveway; and to the west, it meets the direction of pedestrian arrival while creating a sense of serenity and peace within the site. The sloping roof follows the formal relationship of the sloping roof of the warehouse while at the same time slightly lowering its stance, implicitly acknowledging the subordination of its ‘furniture’ objects to the main ‘building.’ It is only then that we realize that the final appropriate scale of the project comes from the measurements drawn in the silence of the farmhouse so that we will be manageable and quiet.
While the warehouse’s roofing material was chosen for practical reasons, using a soft tarpaulin on the main body of the long table and the public gallery makes the roofing less solid. The roofing changes in response to the weather and time of day, morphing into a conversation with nature rather than a static landscape that stands alone. The roofing materials are less permanent, but this is quite rustic, retaining the impermanent and unpredictability of the original. The material will gradually age and even disintegrate with the dawn, sunset, and seasons, and the countryside’s texture reflects this natural turnover and non-permanence. The structural body of the steel and wood skeleton will last slightly longer, adding a layer of temporal dimension.
With People – In our view, the relationship between the Long Table and the local area should be more abstract than it requires deliberate interpretation, and it should be more concrete that it limits many possibilities. Especially as outsiders, our understanding of the local context is not profound. Creating a fixed-function, ostentatious intervention with an overly confident approach often results in presumptuous actions that are, in fact, irrelevant and offensive. We intend to leave a localized collective imaginary space, and it is ultimately up to the people to decide how it is filled and written. We have progressively shifted our focus from the extraordinary to the everyday. During the residency and later operation, some villagers expressed their excessive preference for the long table, even with a hint of defense; we were also pleased to see the residents come to the venue to use the extended table following their understanding and exciting interactions occurred one after the other. The relationship between the locals and the locals grew stronger.
With Time – Tingtangxu Village in the Long Table has a fertile field of thousands of miles. Although the water of the Qu River flows year-round, rice, rapeseed flowers, and other food crops are still cultivated in the spring and autumn cycles. Longyou’s rich grain and rice products are also rooted in the profound farming tradition here, which is still indispensable in daily abundance in our lives today. After the project was launched, we came and went to the site many times, during which the golden rapeseed flowers turned into green rice paddies. After the harvest, it was another scene. Other vegetation changed with the seasons and was very rich, and the long table interestingly reflected each other, making it a useful companion.
In the process of thinking about culture, geography, and daily life, we gradually began to reflect on how design can respond to the joint imagination of abstract and figurative, everyday and extraordinary, and then look forward to a discursive intervention to touch upon the topic of rural construction in the current context and to pull the trigger of more different groups of people and their co-operation. Time has become increasingly important in this process. The labor at dawn and the lights at sunset make the construction closer to materiality, rubbing marks of time.
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