The terraces, along with cantilevered sun screens, temper direct sunlight during the summer months.

Designed in collaboration with our colleagues at BDCL Design International, this nine-story condominium tower is part of a new housing community located in Beijing, China. The project consists of five apartments per floor; each unit is limited to 95 square meters (1,023 square feet). This floor area limit includes exterior terraces and apportioned building common area. As such, units average about 80 square meters or 860 square feet of interior space. The developer's program specified a combined living, dining, and kitchen area complemented by two bedrooms and two baths. Additionally, each unit was required to have an exterior terrace. Given mandated day lighting requirements, all major rooms also had to have a south facing window.

The goal of the building's design was to bring order to what are typically chaotic elevations resulting from conflicts between efficient floor plans and mandated code requirements. These unit plans were developed with main living spaces located at outside corners, maximizing sun exposure and views. These spaces are enclosed with floor to ceiling windows. Bedrooms have mostly opaque walls thus forming a vertical counterpoint to the horizontal glazing at the living spaces. Bedroom windows are narrower and less significant. Concrete floor slabs are expressed with horizontal stone banding to lighten the visual weight of the building. Detailing of the stone banding unifies the overall building form. Slender terraces are cantilevered from the face of the building, reinforcing the qualities of the frame while giving the building an intermediary scale.