Yunlu House

Beyond symbols of tradition, towards a quieter form of authenticity.

Yunlu House is a residential interior project that reconsiders the meaning of a “Chinese house” within the context of contemporary domestic development in China. Set inside a recently constructed developer-built house in the typical “New Chinese Style”, the project takes the form of an adaptive reuse, working with an existing architectural shell already shaped by symbolic references to a perceived Chinese identity.

It questions the notion of cultural authenticity in the domestic environment, and explores how a home might become a sanctuary of sincerity, comfort and everyday practice. In many contemporary Chinese residential developments, tradition is often translated through surface decoration, historical motifs and scenographic effects. The original house can therefore be understood as a kind of decorated shed: a concrete shell dressed with signs of “Chineseness”, yet detached from the lived rituals and spatial qualities that give a home its cultural meaning.

Rather than reinforcing this symbolic language, the design seeks to recover a more grounded understanding of domestic life. The project shifts attention from visual representation to atmosphere, use, material presence and the emotional experience of inhabitation. Through spatial reorganisation, material restraint and a closer reading of daily rituals, the house is reworked as a place that supports both retreat and gathering, privacy and openness, stillness and everyday comfort.

Yunlu House is therefore not simply an interior refurbishment, but an attempt to question how cultural identity can be expressed without resorting to imitation or applied signs. Through adaptive reuse and spatial design, the project transforms a hyperreal domestic setting into a home rooted in sincerity, lived experience and the quiet principles of design.