D-Lake North-bank Estate

Location: Suzhou, Jiangsu, China

Client: Kunshan Da Tang Real Estate Development Co ltd

Building Floor Area: 108,000sqm     Site Area: 100,3000sqm

Completion: Phase one due to complete in 2014.

Design Team:  J Wu, ZQ Wu, W Yin, HY Ma (Phase I); J Wu, J Campon, V Szegal (Phase II/III)

Concept:

Located in proximate to the beautiful Dianshan Lake, this second home project took on big challenge to balance the tensions among the government outlined FAR, Plot Ratio and the client’s market aims. The project mainly delivers terraced house with exemption of a handful bespoke semidetached houses. While the FAR is as high as 1.0, the terraced houses are planned in high density and relatively narrow unit frontage. This could have led to rigid and repetitive eave lines and boring streetscape and possible weakened sense of domains. As mitigation, every two rows of houses are coupled together to form a courtyard neighborhood, built on a ‘podium’ acting as semi-basement parking space with planted roof.  Those pitched roofs and extended and wielded-up gables brace semi-private patios to deliver an enhanced intimate second home neighborhood.

The site is so tide that there was even no dedicated space left for a necessary service building, which is eventually built against the south boundary. This giant ‘gateway has a large span opening working as the comprehensive entrance to the community. Over its pitched roof, a small tower fully glazed on south and east aspects leaps up to the height limit to work as the ‘neon’ of the project.

All the buildings have granite cladding external walls, concrete interlock roof tiles and powder-coated double glazing in aluminum frame with thermal breaks.