Strange-Thing Effect

Strange-Thing Effect

Fairyland Guorui Villas

Villas of a new typology in Beijing lead to a breakthrough on the fields of psychology and behavioral science!?

Psychologists and behavioral scientists have found out in numerous experiments that people recognize members of their own ethnic group more easily than people with a different ethnic background. In other words, this is the well-known phenomenon that when, let’s say, a Korean visits Sweden for the first time, “all the Swedes look the same to him”. This phenomenon is called the “cross-race effect”. By the way, this effect diminishes with the increasing intensity of contact to the different ethnic group. So, a Korean working in Sweden for some time will recognize Swedes as easily as other Koreans. Now, I might just have made a groundbreaking discovery on the field of cross-race-effect research that will even change the effect’s name. But before I go on describing my discovery, I would like to formulate a hypothesis: We just recognize the kinds of people, animals or things that we know more easily than the kinds of people, animals or things that are strange to us.

Research Object: Fairyland Guorui Villas

The place of my find is found in the Miyun Economic & Technical Development Zone in Beijing. There, surrounded by a natural landscape with two converging rivers and mountain views, UNSTudio have completed this year a complex of 56 state of the art villas: the Fairyland Guorui Villas. These possess their very own typology whose most striking features are gentle bends and a special cladding of narrow bright brown bricks recycled from powdered stone. Form and cladding give a certain dynamic to the façade as if it was being blown away by the wind. Also, a certain set of elements is an integral part of this typology: balconies, large bay windows, overhangs and roof terraces.

Now, let’s have a look at my (self-) discovery: Due to this strange, fascinating and beautiful façade and form and the recurring elements, I had the misconception that all the villas of this neighborhood were the same. Which is not the case at all. As was found out in research on the cross-race effect, people tend to unconsciously classify people of a different ethnic group instead of individualizing them. And that is exactly what I did with these villas belonging to a strange and so far unknown typology. Hence, my second hypothesis: When something is strange to us, we first classify it instead of individualizing.

Systematic Individualization

There is a certain irony in my misconception, for the architects actually put some effort into making every house an individual. Basically, every villa is based on the same kit of elements I already mentioned above. But these elements are differently arranged in all the houses, which also even leads to small differences in their cubage. Nevertheless, there is also a certain sense of community and measures for the common good such as producing energy by wind and solar systems.

Finding your Home

My personal general impression of this extraordinary typology is a very harmonious one. It feels like the villas are in some kind of a harmonious flow. Might be due to their flowing, windy facades... Anyways, I could well imagine living in one of these houses in the “fairyland”. And I think I would even be able to distinguish my own house from the others after some time.

Project details

Architect:

UNStudio 

Status:

Completion: 2015

Size:

Building surface: 26.455 m²

Building site: 23.489 m²

Comments

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