A building rising from the hilltop—Three topographical approaches to building in a landscape

This essay writes on a building project in the remote southwestern China that is built in uninhabited and is inspired and informed by its landscape context. The essay discusses how an extraordinary building project reacts to three different dimensions about landscape–architecture—a natural terrain being manipulated and recast. A small building needs to find its precise connecting point to a much larger historical and environmental context. A practical project needs to reach a balance between architectural pursuits and engineering concerns. Initially, artificial works might be isolated from and in conflict with the terrain, which requires architectural approaches to reconciling the demands at different scales and of functions. Finally, people who use the building will move forward to an effective and open dialogue between architecture and its landscape settings.

The work entitled “A Building Rising From the Hilltop—Three Topographical Approaches to Building in a Landscape” was published on the journal of Landscape Architecture Frontiers (December 7, 2023).