Anna Jia

“The Tea Vault”

The Tea Vault is a combined storefront and home, a tea cafe on the street level and living quarters for the owners of the cafe on the upper level. This building explores formal and experiential consequences of the vault geometry and floor elevation changes in tandem. Using vaults in plan allows for a nuanced notion of solid and void, while also creating moments of privacy without explicit obstructions in path or sight. The cafe and house are programmatically organized in parallel, exploring how aspects of living are translated into aspects of a tea house.