- Project: Qu Yuan Plus Restaurant
- Architect: LDH Design
- Location: China, Yangzhou
- Year: 2022
- Area: 2382 m2
- Photography: Wang Ting
A Contemporary Ode to Classical Gardens
At the edge of Yangzhou’s Slender West Lake, Qu Yuan Plus Restaurant by LDH Design captures the poetic rhythm of Chinese garden philosophy through light, shadow, and spatial flow. The restaurant reinterprets the traditional Jiangnan aesthetic — serenity, reflection, and layered beauty — through modern architectural expression and refined materiality.
Rooted in the region’s long-standing culture of leisure and artistry, the project merges landscape and architecture, tradition and modernity, embodying a timeless dialogue between nature and human sensibility.
Spirit of Yangzhou
Yangzhou has long been a city defined by its slow life: a place of tea, gardens, and riverside poetry. Its heritage of elegance and subtlety finds expression in both architecture and daily ritual. LDH Design drew inspiration from this spirit, crafting an environment that evokes solitude, composure, and quiet introspection.
The concept draws from a poetic passage — “A world of solitude is slow in pace yet firm in essence” — reminding visitors that beauty lies in balance: between motion and stillness, emptiness and fullness, history and the present.
Concept & Spatial Sequence
The design is conceived as an indoor garden, where architecture becomes a medium for emotional experience. Rather than emphasizing form, the project focuses on spatial rhythm, transition, and the choreography of light.
Visitors enter a sequence of thresholds — framed corridors, shadowed courtyards, and reflective surfaces — recalling the experience of walking through a classical Chinese garden. Every turn reveals a subtle shift: the texture of stone, the shimmer of water, the filtered daylight through lattice screens.
The architectural narrative unfolds like a painting in motion, where each perspective reveals a new layer of meaning.
Architecture & Material Language
LDH Design treats light and shadow as architectural materials, using them to articulate depth and time. The contrast between solid and void shapes the perception of enclosure, creating a quiet tension between openness and intimacy.
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Ceiling forms reference the curvature of garden bridges.
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Partition screens reinterpret traditional latticework through minimalist metal grids.
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Water and reflective surfaces multiply the interior, creating a sense of infinite extension.
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Stone, timber, and glass combine in restrained tones, allowing texture and temperature to speak rather than ornament.
The effect is one of restrained luxury — a harmony between craftsmanship and emptiness that invites pause and contemplation.
Light, Reflection & Emotional Resonance
Natural light filters through narrow openings, grazing across textured walls and polished floors. Artificial lighting remains soft and indirect, tracing the outlines of architectural gestures rather than overpowering them.
At night, the interior glows like a lantern, echoing across the lake’s surface and connecting the new structure to the centuries-old scenery of Yangzhou’s waterways.
This choreography of light and reflection creates an immersive meditative atmosphere, reminiscent of the rhythm of ink and wash painting.
Spatial Experience
Within the 25,639-square-foot restaurant, movement replaces boundaries. Dining zones, lounges, and private rooms transition fluidly into one another, guided by shifting materials and transparency.
Each dining suite offers a unique composition: framed garden views, sculptural ceilings, and subtle landscape insertions that make every space feel like a pavilion within a larger garden.
The connection between indoor and outdoor blurs completely — bamboo courtyards, water corridors, and quiet alcoves are all interwoven, inviting guests to wander and rediscover serenity through spatial exploration.
Cultural Continuity & Modern Renewal
“Qu Yuan Plus” extends the legacy of Qu Yuan Tea House, a Yangzhou landmark, bringing it into a new era of design and gastronomy.
Partnering with Chef Chen Wanqing, a leading figure in contemporary Huaiyang cuisine, LDH Design positions the restaurant as both a cultural renewal and a lifestyle statement. Its architecture bridges time — respecting the classical while welcoming a younger generation seeking sensory connection and aesthetic depth.
The Designer’s Vision
For principal designer Liu Daohua, the project is an exploration of emptiness as fullness:
“Tranquility embraces movement; emptiness contains myriad worlds.”
In this sense, Qu Yuan Plus is less a restaurant than an artful composition of space, time, and feeling — a contemplative journey where architecture, cuisine, and memory converge.
