Tea Culture Primary Function: Aula Pangalaman Budaya Teh

Press Kit

Unique Properties

The Project took only more than one month from design to opening. How to complete design and high-quality implementation in such short time? And I thought of the ancient literati and painters, who had often dealt with friends, but only a few strokes and words would reveal their broad mind, much better than a masterwork. So, I simplified what was complicated. The process looked quite like the original intention of the tea ceremony—to eliminate fidgetiness before tasting fragrance.

Dimensions & Packaging

What came last was visual presentation. For the interspace distortion caused by the connecting paper, it was a contingent visual effect we wanted to achieve, giving the entire room not only classical calmness, but also modern vitality. Finally, the surface texture of paper was replaced with slender grids to express an elusory and visible Oriental mood.

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Tea Culture Exploration Hall

Production Technology

Smelling Osmanthus Fragrance is a well-known story about Zen. Huang Tingjian, a great calligrapher and litterateur in the Northern Song Dynasty, practiced the dharma to reach understanding of Zen and seek enlightenment, but being short-tempered, he thought that the master didn’t teach him how to get enlightened although they had stayed together for many years. One day, they traveled leisurely between the earth and sky. The master asked, Have you smelled the fragrance of osmanthus flowers? Huang Tingjian answered, I have. Everywhere! The master laughed and said, As you know, I didn’t hide anything from you! Huang Tingjian perceived Zen through meditation: Like the beauty of living and the fragrance of osmanthus flowers, the way of life can be found everywhere and will never disappear, but everybody must smell and comprehend it himself. The same is true for the philosophical connotation of the tea ceremony, isn’t it? It is just that tea is used as the carrier to seek enlightenment. That’s called the tea ceremony at the cultural level.

At the substantial phase of design, the biggest obstacle encountered was that the spaces were too small. There would be no extra space provided that the room was given all functions, but the design would be uninteresting supposing that nothing more was added. As I was at my wits’ end, it struck me that some idea might be obtained from the paper folding game I played in my childhood, so I folded, unfolded and ripped A4 paper again and gain, finally joining a number of horizontal and vertical spaces together and making them into a holonomic one where people could walk freely, interact with one another or stop to look back, looking like a 3D hanging courtyard. Through functional ablation of each space, people could easily enter a calm state of relaxation and meditation. That should presumably be the most ideal state for tea affairs.

Inspiration

When I was young, I despised the Japanese sado culture as a red tape, but I have now realized that I was so shallow because the tea ceremony is a process where one cultivates himself and seeks enlightenment. Years later, I heard the story of Smelling Osmanthus Fragrance in the Suzhou Garden and suddenly had my chaotic thoughts straightened out. It happened that my friend commissioned me to design a small-sized tea culture experience hall, so I named it Osmanthus Fragrance Cottage.