Baitasi House of the Future

Baitasi House of the Future is located in a historic hutong area of Beijing. The client is a tech company focuses on the smart homes. The commission is to create an experimental house that suits the future lifestyles of young people. Baitasi is one of the well preserved hutong neighborhoods. The original site had a 30 sqm house and a 80 sqm yard cramped with illegal building works. Our design strategy is focused on three words: home, hutong and future.

Home
When we talk about house we are talking about home. The society is getting more diversified with proud singles, nuclear family, civil partnership, open relationship and etc. Apart from personal relationship, occupations and the social environment are also changing the definition of home. The boundary between home and society is blurred by the rise of the sharing economy, nomad workers and technology. Our lives are fragmented and can not be accommodated by a fixed layout.

The house of the future should represent such a lifestyle of young people. They can fluidly shift between work and home. Access and convenience are more important to them than ownership. The possibilities of home space outweigh its physical dimension. They pursue new things while value the quality of life.

Hutong
As the project is located in a historic area which is also a busy neighbourhood, construction activity needs to be minimised. After demolishing all the illegal building works, a lightweight structure unit is inserted to provide the basic facilities for the house.

Future
Technology should serve people, not the other way around. Although the House of the Future is equipped with many smart devices, we would like the house to be warm and cosy with all the tech hidden behind.

The original house is wood framed. To minimise construction work and reveal the beauty of traditional Chinese wooden structure, we replaced the decayed roof and removed all the interior partitions. Two moveable furniture modules and one fixed module are placed under the new roof. With the moveable modules, the house can have four different layout options. According to the needs of the residents, it can shift from a three bedrooms house to a small office. The facade can be open up to connect the living space and the outdoors.

The moveable modules are controlled by a smart TV. This TV system also controls lighting modes, curtains, security alarm and other home appliances. Based on the strategy of minimal intervention, we use WikiHouse system for the only new built structure on site. It serves as the kitchen and toilet. The WikiHouse is an open-source project for building houses. It is lightweight and digitally fabricated. Its faster and cleaner construction process suits the crowded and noise sensitive neighbourhood very well.

Compared to many futuristic design, this tiny house is nothing close to future at the first look. But its humble appearance and user adaptive interior may reflect something about the future in the ancient capital.

dot Architects: Duo Ning, Sun Qingfeng, Mao yanyan

Structure Consultants: Liu Su, WikiHouse Foundation