Mountain Journey Family Suite by Archstudio
Mountain Journey Family Suite reimagines a 130-square-metre suite in Shenzhen, China as an indoor topography for shared adventure and rest. Created by Archstudio for a public-interest initiative, the project turns a typical hotel layout into an explorable “mountain” that lets children roam while adults unwind. Families encounter a room that folds daily routines into play, where every level, tunnel, and platform supports both comfort and discovery.
Soft cork underfoot rises in gentle steps, drawing children toward a terraced slope that cuts through the suite. Light washes across the angled walls and platforms, catching walnut inlays and pine-green upholstery before disappearing into tucked-away caves and tunnels.
This family suite in Shenzhen, China sits inside the Shenzhen Women and Children’s Center, where Archstudio turns an irregular two-bedroom layout into a three-dimensional landscape for living and play. The project treats the room as a compact terrain, using level changes, tunnels, and a looping route to fuse daily routines with exploratory movement. Every surface relates to family use: children climb, crawl, and slide while adults cook, talk, and rest nearby.
A public-interest initiative launched by the Shenzhen Municipal Working Committee on Women and Children sets the brief, calling for a themed room that serves real family needs. Instead of relying on surface decoration, the architects build a “mountain” at a human scale, using 35-centimeter height increments to define terraces where living, dining, sleeping, and bathing happen alongside games and climbing. The result is a suite that functions as both lodging and landscape, with circulation that keeps children engaged and caregivers close.
Shaping The Indoor Mountain
The core gesture is a terraced volume that runs through the irregular rhombus-shaped plan, turning leftover corners into usable ledges, slopes, and alcoves. A repeating 35-centimeter module builds the topography, forming steps for sitting, platforms for beds, and gradual ramps for safer movement. Edges are rounded so knees, hands, and heads meet soft curves instead of hard corners. What began as a conventional two-bedroom arrangement becomes a continuous terrain where floor, furniture, and circulation merge into one coherent element.
Looping Play And Daily Routine
Movement follows a clear loop: children start at the “foot” of the mountain, climb toward the slope, cross a tunnel and rope net near the peak, then descend through a slide. Along this circuit, ordinary activities fold in—parents watch from nearby platforms, siblings rest on intermediate ledges, and shared seating clusters around level changes. Two independent bathrooms sit inside carved-out “caves,” separated into wet and dry zones yet kept visually open through glass partitions. The loop keeps kids in motion without losing sightlines, so play stays woven into family life rather than pushed aside.
Sleeping Platforms For Generations
Three sleeping platforms at different heights allow the suite to adapt to many family constellations, from parents with infants to multi-generational groups. Elevated levels give older children and grandparents their own corners, while lower platforms serve as shared beds or daytime lounges. The terraced arrangement creates subtle separation without doors, relying on height and orientation instead of partitions. This setup turns bedtime into another shared moment on the mountain, where proximity and privacy balance in a compact footprint.
Textures Of Forest And Field
Material choices reinforce the mountain narrative and keep contact surfaces gentle for young bodies. Soft cork wraps the primary volume, with walnut inlays tracing edges and transitions so feet and hands read the terrain as they move. Pine-green upholstery suggests forest foliage, while animal-shaped furniture and lighting bring in playful companions without resorting to graphic themes. Every tactile cue—from the grip of rope netting to the warmth of wood-toned details—supports a calm yet exploratory mood.
At the end of a day’s climb, the suite settles into quiet, with light catching on cork slopes and dimming in the bathroom caves. Families gather on shared platforms, the terraced room holding their conversations and games. The “mountain journey” becomes less a theme than a routine: waking, washing, playing, and resting threaded through the same looping path, ready for the next stay.
Photography by Lin Shikai
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