Nestled on the western edge of the Lujiang Basin in Baoshan, Yunnan Province, the Bawan Village Visitor Center by TAO (Trace Architecture Office) demonstrates how contemporary architecture can emerge from the logic of an existing rural landscape. Completed in 2026, the 244-square-meter visitor center transforms an abandoned gas station into a welcoming public space that reconnects visitors with the mountain village while preserving its spatial identity. Designed under the leadership of architect Hua Li, the project functions as both a gateway to the Gaoligong Mountains and an extension of everyday village life.

Responding to a Village Built by the Mountain

Bawan Village occupies the folded foothills of the southern Gaoligong Mountains, where terraced farms, orchards and stone houses step down steep slopes toward the subtropical plains. Unlike settlements planned around grids, the village has evolved gradually over generations, producing an intricate network of retaining walls, narrow paths and layered outdoor spaces that closely follow the terrain.

TAO approached the project as an extension of this existing topographic logic. The visitor center adopts the same language of stacking, carving, and embedding that has shaped the village’s architecture for centuries. The result feels less like an inserted object and more like a natural continuation of the hillside.

Transforming an Abandoned Gas Station into a Village Gateway

The project site once served as a small roadside gas station positioned at a bend in the main road entering the village. Although abandoned for years, two mature trees survived the site’s previous industrial use, becoming the only living reminders of its past.

Instead of clearing the land completely, the architects retained these trees and used them as anchors for the new design. The neglected roadside plot has been reimagined as a public forecourt where visitors can pause before entering the village and where residents gain a new civic gathering space. The intervention demonstrates how architectural reuse can restore overlooked fragments of rural infrastructure while strengthening local identity.

Architecture Embedded into the Topography

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of the project is the way the building disappears into the slope. The architecture grows out of the hillside instead of standing apart from it. By tucking much of the building into the terrain, the roof becomes an extension of the landscape, making the visitor center appear as part of the mountain.

TAO describes the design as following the constructive principles found in the village’s stone retaining walls. Those walls are practical structures built incrementally over generations. By borrowing their tectonic logic, the visitor center appears as though it has been excavated from the hillside.

This strategy also improves thermal performance, with the surrounding earth providing insulation against Yunnan’s changing temperatures while visually integrating the architecture into its natural setting.

The Stone Wall as an Architectural Language

The architects abstracted one of the settlement’s most fundamental construction elements, the stone retaining wall. Throughout Bawan, these walls shape agricultural terraces, define property boundaries and stabilize the mountain slopes. They represent accumulated knowledge.

The visitor center translates this everyday construction method into contemporary architecture. Solid stone-like surfaces frame entrances, retain the landscape, and create quiet courtyards while reinforcing the perception that the building belongs to the mountain itself. The project creates continuity between vernacular construction and modern public architecture.

Spatial Experience Through Compression and Release

The spatial sequence is deliberately understated. Visitors approach from the roadside before gradually descending into sheltered spaces embedded within the terrain. As movement continues through the building, positioned openings reveal framed views toward the surrounding landscape, creating moments of compression followed by visual expansion.

Natural light enters through precisely placed openings that soften the enclosed interiors without exposing them entirely to the exterior. This choreography reinforces the experience of moving through a mountain settlement where narrow passages frequently open onto terraces and panoramic views.The architecture encourages slow exploration through changes in level, texture, and perspective.

Material Simplicity and Structural Clarity

The visitor center employs a reinforced concrete structural system while expressing the tactile qualities of locally familiar stone construction. Materials are intentionally restrained, allowing texture, mass, and shadow to define the architectural character instead of decorative finishes.

The heavy masonry-like surfaces establish a sense of permanence, while recessed glazing and carefully detailed openings introduce contemporary precision without competing with the rugged landscape. The restrained material palette also minimizes maintenance and allows the building to weather naturally alongside the surrounding stone village.

Supporting Rural Tourism Without Disrupting Village Life

Beyond functioning as a reception point, the visitor center accommodates tourist information, coffee-related services, and small public amenities that support the region’s growing cultural tourism economy.Located near the well-known coffee-producing landscape of Lujiang, the project complements nearby destinations such as TAO’s earlier Xinzhai Coffee Manor, reinforcing a broader architectural strategy for rural revitalization through carefully designed public infrastructure. The building strengthens visitors’ understanding of the landscape before they continue into the village and surrounding mountains.

Architecture as a Continuation of Place

The Bawan Village Visitor Center illustrates TAO’s long-standing philosophy that architecture should emerge from the environmental, cultural, and construction traditions of its site.By transforming a neglected roadside parcel into a quiet civic landmark, the project demonstrates how small-scale public architecture can preserve vernacular knowledge while supporting contemporary tourism. Instead of competing with Bawan Village’s historic character, the building extends it using the language of terrain, stone, and careful spatial sequencing to create architecture that feels inseparable from its mountain landscape.

Source & Photo Credit: ParametricArchitecture (PA)

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