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we just felt like if we have kids you
know it would be wonderful to just give
them a place where they can just run
around freely and that was really the
main idea behind this kids can roll in
the grass I think climb a tree and they
can run around freely in the garden all
of those things city kids can't really
do anymore and it was really important
for us to have that for our kids we were
really lucky we found it through Google
Earth you know we're here so close to
the rave wall this village that looked
really promising because it had a river
in it not on a true Street so it was
just like tucked away in this valley so
we got really interested in curious my
name is Chris I am an architect and I'm
originally from Germany I've been living
and working in Beijing for about 12
years and my partner young Klosterman
and I we run a practice our office and
sunny - in Soho so right in the center
of Beijing it's like very busy just like
city life on the weekends I really like
to come out here to the house where we
can just recharge our batteries from the
city life and this is why I really enjoy
coming out here
I met my wife semi here in Beijing also
about seven years ago and we've done up
the place together when we came here we
found this house in this house had been
empty for about 25 years or so the house
was built in the early 70s perhaps it
was completely not inhabitable and there
is no water inside there's obviously no
plumbing inside to lose electricity my
wife then had the idea of just going to
the to the village office and talked to
the village leaders and they've got
these speakers here in the village and
they just called out the owner of the
place and that's how we first got in
contact with the owner of the place we
just totally fell in love with the place
at the time we only had a really small
budget but that didn't really matter to
us we basically just kept the three
existing walls and the roof and
everything else was stripped away we
wanted to insert two bedrooms and the
bathroom also some storage area and of
course the living room in the kitchen so
we just inserted these cubicles into the
house there our sleeping cubicles
reinstated the cang beds kept everything
very basic and raw
before I became an architect I was
trained as carpenter so I read that's
really where I come from and it's it's
just really fun to work with wood a lot
of the furniture here we did ourselves
what's great about it is that you
instantly see what you've done do
something where after one day you can
see what you've built so that's really
the the fun that I get out of his
project
the windows that we have here basically
we wanted to understand them as a piece
of furniture that we insert into the
house and they're very deep big timber
boards and you know our son even sits in
them and reads I'm countryside boy I
grew up in a village when we have the
time then to play with the kids in the
garden and we just really want them to
run around freely try themselves out so
they shouldn't be afraid to climb a tree
no once awhile they fall or they get
approves but um for us it's just
important that they are confident that
they can try these things and and
they're they don't always feel like
they're being watched
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almost every weekend you know when we
have someone come over I really like to
do this big barbecues my wife she like
prepares these amazing ribs I mean I see
this as a luxury just to come out here
on the weekends and you know then it's
really just about keeping everything
very simple and that's how we designed
the house
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