![](https://az-media.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/awards/2023/06/21163411/02-Shanshui-Firewood-Garden-inner-courtyard.jpg)
Earth, water, light and air: Shanshui Firewood Garden brings it all together beautifully in a 1,100-square-metre tearoom in Sichuan. Designed by MIX Architecture, the building comprises four rectangular huts, which pinwheel around a central pond. The exterior cladding — red sandstone in a brickweave pattern — evokes local vernacular design, and the interior amenities, like the café and reading room, offer framed views onto a nearby bamboo forest. The central pond is surrounded by what the architects call “hollow walls”: rows upon rows of mottled firewood, suspended from the eaves by cables, which sway in the breeze and cast shadows onto the still water.
![](https://az-media.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/awards/2023/06/21163428/10-Shanshui-Firewood-Garden-details.jpg)
Team: Suning Zhou with Ke Yang, Qian Shi, Ziye Wu, Tao Tang and Libin Lin
Earth, water, light and air: Shanshui Firewood Garden brings it all together beautifully in a 1,100-square-metre tearoom in Sichuan.