stepped brick layers of MUFU archlab’s cultural space hosts festival traditions in china village

shanxia cultural station backdrops the village’s yearly festival

Set at the foot of Houyanta Hill in Zhejiang Province, the Shanxia Cultural Station by MUFU ARCHLAB is informed by its proximity to landscape and ritual. Located directly across from the open field where Shanxia Village’s centuries-old Bench Dragon Lantern ceremony unfolds each year, the project functions as a cultural threshold, bridging everyday life and the temporality of celebration.

The Chinese practice’s design approach responds closely to spatial context and local identity, resting the building on a former residential plot, with a scale and orientation that subtly signals its public intent. To its north, the ceremonial field remains untouched; behind it, the unique rock formations of the hills form a natural backdrop. This pairing of geological and cultural terrain informs the stepped brick layers of the facade, as well as the project’s logic which reinforces patterns of movement.

all images courtesy of MUFU ARCHLAB

mufu archlab rests the structure with a subtle presence

The decision to locate a new public building here is inseparable from the village’s long cultural trajectory. Historically known as Shiyou (travel-friendly), Shanxia has produced notable scholars and retained strong ritual traditions despite recent urban encroachment. The Bench Dragon Lantern, held on the seventeenth day of the first lunar month, is its most visible expression, a vivid procession in which villagers shoulder wooden benches arranged to form the body of a dragon. Each family contributes a segment, and each new marriage extends the dragon’s length, turning the ritual into a living diagram of kinship, growth, and shared presence.

MUFU ARCHLAB’s design is shaped by this annual convergence, with the Cultural Station becoming an instrument in the festival’s perpetuation. The tiered brick structure supports its performance logistically while reinforcing its spatial centrality in village life. Further, it provides infrastructure through a subtle framing. In this way, the project reflects a larger sensibility in the architects‘ work to treat architecture as one of the ongoing mediums of culture-making.     

Shanxia Cultural Station is informed by its proximity to landscape and ritual

located across from the field where Shanxia Village’s historic Bench Dragon Lantern ceremony unfolds each year

the Cultural Station becomes an instrument in the festival’s perpetuation

layers of bricks echo the contours of the hills

a quiet public space

the project reflects a larger sensibility of the architect to treat architecture as an ongoing mediums of culture-making

set at the foot of Houyanta Hill in Zhejiang Province

project info:

name: Shanxia Cultural Station

architect: MUFU Arch Lab 

location: China

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