Yellow River Jizi Gulf Sizuota Homestay Guesthouse

The Sizuota Homestay Guesthouse in the Yellow River Jizi (which means “curved”) Gulf is located in the Yellow River scenic area, on the top of a hill above a canyon. Facing a protruding section of the Yellow River Gorge, it boasts magnificent scenery. This small-scale guesthouse has thirteen rooms, a cafeteria with sunset views, a viewing platform, a restaurant, multifunctional halls, service areas, and so on, which provide visitors with beds, meals, leisure, entertainment, and other functions.

The site is surrounded by a hundred miles of the Yellow River, with cliffs on both banks that are covered by strange rocks, forming a stunning landscape marked by a high gorge and flat lake. The architects sought to build a shelter for people amidst this natural environment that would optimally capitalize on the landscape’s potential. The aim was to create a building that would harmonize unpretentiously with its surroundings, concealed among the canyon rocks thanks to the use of local construction techniques. The building consists of three sections. The public service area is located to the south of the entrance. The cafeteria and guest rooms are on the north and south sides respectively, forming an inner courtyard that runs from east to west. A viewing platform is set at the end of the courtyard, which is located at the westernmost side of the overall layout. The canyon wall on the other side of the Yellow River serves as the end of the spatial sight line. The dispersed layout conveys a sense of contraction and expansion as well as concealment and openness within the grand natural environment. The cafe is designed on the western side, adjacent to the viewing platform, with a door that can be fully opened to bring the interior out into the open air. When visitors enter the guest rooms from the inner courtyard, they have to pass a small courtyard enclosed by half-height walls. In order to ensure a wonderful view from all the rooms, the architects maximized the potential of the landscape by staggering and stacking the guest rooms so that the wonderfully scenic high gorge and flat lake can be enjoyed from each balcony, which protrudes from the cliff and overlooks the Yellow River and canyon, forming a spatial sequence from semiprivate to private to open: When facing the “real world” the balcony is concealed and introverted, whereas it is fully open towards the magnificent natural world. Local cliff stones have been used as the material for the building’s walls, establishing a sense of harmony between the artificially constructed structure and the canyon cliffs that reveals the architects’ humility in the face of the imposing nature and an acceptance of the magnificent scenery. The architecture thus becomes an embodiment of art in nature, while the landscape is nature in a manmade world.