Floating Pavilion
The Floating Pavilion occupies the summit of a terraced tea mountain in the Organic Tea Valley of Xinxing Town, Songyang County, Zhejiang Province, approximately thirty kilometres from Songyang's urban centre and five hundred metres above sea level. Commissioned by the town government, the 85-square-metre open-air structure serves as a viewing pavilion and rest point within a working tea-producing landscape.
The site commands open views of rolling tea hills in every direction, with mist rising periodically from the valley floor. Prior to construction, only narrow field paths crossed the steep terrain; no structures existed. An ascending path of granite steps follows existing tea-picking routes, winding through the terraces in a zigzag that echoes the roof's inclination. The pavilion appears and disappears from view during the climb. From the summit, a reservoir is visible to the south; visitors then turn and descend across a gravel threshold into the pavilion.
A curved steel roof hovers above stepped platforms that descend the slope. At the entrance, views are compressed beneath the roof edge. As visitors move down through the platforms, the roof lifts and the landscape opens. At the lowest level, the full tea valley panorama is revealed. This spatial sequence results from the calibration of roof curvature against topographic drop, not from formal complexity.
The roof is a composite sandwich: a steel grid between upper and lower steel plates, with edges tapering downward to integrate structure, drainage, and visual profile into a single blade-like section. The deck is supported by a single transverse beam; cantilevering is achieved through wedge-shaped steel stiffeners. A deliberate separation between platform edges and columns creates semicircular voids, allowing light to penetrate from below. Slender tension cables between columns serve as safety barriers while preserving transparency. Custom cylindrical luminaires at column bases project light upward along the curved roof soffit.
Steep terrain precluded the use of machinery. Steel components were prefabricated off-site and transported to the summit by wheeled cart and cable system. Primary and secondary elements were produced in segments, balancing constructability with finish quality. Excavation and vegetation disturbance were minimised; ecological restoration followed completion.
Since completion, the pavilion and its path have been absorbed into daily use — a rest point for hikers and a place to watch sunrise and sunset, but also improved access for tea farmers to the upper terraces during harvest. The granite steps that guide visitors are the same steps that serve the picking season.
