Humble Hostel
Beijing Design Week 2015 - Dashilar district
'The inspiration for this design comes from my friend Tao Zui and the hutong installation he did a few years ago.'
A group of youngsters came up with the idea to turn the empty space of a hutong yard into a hostel. The yard was already occupied by many small kitchens built by the neighbors, stashed and parked bicycles, as well as piles of random junk.
The arrival of the young people would serve to further congest the yard, so we needed to find a way to live peacefully with the neighbors.
Therefore, this design chooses to ‘step back’ and be humble by using a set of sliding walls that each house a bed, desk, and door, and serves to continuously change the proportion of indoor and outdoor space accordingly based on the current need.
As such, when there are not many guests at the hostel, some space can be given back to the yard by sliding the doors around to “compensate” for the area already occupied by the kitchens, and when the hostel is full there is still enough space to accommodate all guests.
The space beneath the roof can be used as a public leisure area or a bar for the young people, in addition to a space for the neighbors to store their bicycles.
