This project is for a healthcare retreat centre sited in Wuchang, west of Xixi National Wetland Park in the outer reaches of Hangzhou. The building fuses nature and the manmade to create a programme that aims to provide much needed aftercare facilities in the Chinese medical system, which includes settings for reflection, contemplation and rest.

Drawing on the traditional Chinese concept of ‘gui tu’ (meaning ‘back to roots’, or ‘returning ground’) and through the adaption of geotechnical methodologies, the project aims to give water back to the wider landscape which was once a natural wetland, but has been battered by neglect and rapid urbanisation. The main challenge is posed by the site’s shifting water table. Flooded in summer and dehydrated in winter, the negotiation of soil conditions challenges methods of construction so that soil and architecture can restore the wetland habitat.

The project deals with the limitation of available materials in reality and speculatively. Through the reuse of modelling material, the building is renegotiated repeatedly into various construction scales. As the model at different scales dehydrates, water is reintroduced to disassemble the previous iteration in order to create the next; an analogy to the wetland’s constant reshaping by water.