Hütte 5: Village House Conversion, Moganshan, China

Genco Berk

Oct 5

5 min read

Austrian designer Genco Berk transformed existing village houses into a boutique retreat in the bamboo forests of Moganshan, China.

In the bamboo-covered mountains of Moganshan, the Cuiyu Muzhuwu (Emerald Hills) project turned a cluster of existing village houses into a boutique hospitality retreat. Austrian architect Genco Berk designed Hütte 5 — a main building, a smaller bedroom building and a café — together with Hütte 7, a separate three-storey guest building.

The names came from the client. Hütte is German for hut or cabin, and the German terminology was chosen deliberately, to give the retreat a more Western character and to give each building its own identity within the larger development.

Bedroom in Hütte 5, a guest room transformed from an existing village house by Genco Berk in Moganshan, China, with white linens, an orange-and-white geometric accent wall, and French floor-to-ceiling windows opening onto a small balcony overlooking the bamboo forest. — Wake up to the treetops: a room designed to bring the forest inside.

The project belongs to the wider movement of rural tourism in China, where village properties are increasingly being put to new use as part of the rural revitalization drive. Instead of demolishing and building fresh, we worked with structures that were already embedded in the village and its landscape. For an architect, that is a fundamentally different starting point from a hotel commission on an empty site. The buildings, their structures and their relationship to the terrain already existed. The task was to transform, not replace.

From decorative village house to contemporary retreat

The original houses had accumulated a heavily decorative appearance over the years: tiled façades, ornamental balconies, columns, railings — a historicising costume that had little to do with either the village's real building traditions or the way people would actually use the place as guests.

We did not attempt to reproduce any of it. Most of the decoration came off, and in its place we built a quieter architectural language. The structures stayed; the façades, openings, materials and interiors were substantially reinterpreted. Clean white surfaces were combined with dark-framed glazing, timber, stone, brick and industrial materials, with the aim of giving the retreat a contemporary, European-industrial character without severing its connection to the rural setting.

Before-and-after comparison of a Moganshan village house transformed by Genco Berk for the Emerald Hills (Cuiyu Muzhuwu) retreat: on the left, the original tiled, arched façade with ornamental railings; on the right, the same building reinterpreted with clean white surfaces, dark stone base, rectangular windows and warm evening light. — Transform, not replace: the decorative village house and its contemporary reinterpretation as part of Hütte 5.

Contemporary three-storey retreat building of Hütte 5, designed by Austrian architect Genco Berk for the Emerald Hills (Cuiyu Muzhuwu) project in Moganshan, China, with a white exterior, dark-framed glass doors opening onto a wooden deck, a balcony with glass railing and outdoor furniture, and warm light glowing from behind wooden shutters at dusk. — Clean lines, warm light: the quiet architectural language of Genco Berk's Hütte 5 among the bamboo-covered mountains of Moganshan.

Opening the buildings to the landscape

The most important change was the relationship between the buildings and the bamboo forest around them.

Hütte 5 by Austrian architect Genco Berk in Moganshan, China: the main building, bedroom side building and café of the Emerald Hills (Cuiyu Muzhuwu) retreat, composed in white surfaces with dark-framed glazing and timber accents, arranged around a wooden deck with black outdoor furniture amid greenery. — Hütte 5 in its entirety: the main building with bedrooms and restaurant, a smaller bedroom building, and a café — three transformed village houses forming one quiet contemporary retreat in the bamboo forests of Moganshan.

The existing houses were opened up with French floor-to-ceiling windows. This brought far more daylight into the interiors, but the windows were never just a functional improvement — they changed how the rooms feel to be in. Where the old houses turned inward, the new ones look outward: the bamboo-covered mountains are now framed at every level, and the landscape has become part of the interior experience rather than something viewed through a small opening.

Guest bedroom in Hütte 5, Genco Berk's transformed village house in Moganshan, China, with a bed in white linens against an orange-and-white geometric accent wall, dark old-wood flooring, wall-mounted lamps and a slanted ceiling, with a large floor-to-ceiling window framed by pink curtains bringing in daylight. — Restraint with a spark: vibrant accents within a quiet palette — old-wood floors, white surfaces and a bold geometric wallpaper.

The main features of Hütte 5 include:

- Transformation of the heavily ornamented village-house façades

- Enlarged French floor-to-ceiling windows framing the bamboo forest

- Local old-wood flooring with visible grain and texture

- Recycled container steel reused as guest-room doors

- White architectural surfaces combined with timber, brick and stone

- Industrial materials placed alongside natural and reclaimed ones

- Vibrant indoor colors accents within the restrained palette

- A café with a living tree growing through the roof

- Bamboo formations around the fireplace, referencing local storage traditions

Old materials, new uses

The palette was deliberately not a luxury-hotel palette. Old local wood was used for the flooring, its grain and irregular texture left visible rather than sanded into uniformity. Recycled container steel — a material with a hard, travelled history of its own — was recast as guest-room doors. Stone, brick and timber added further layers, while the white surfaces and dark glazing held everything together in a contemporary frame.

Before and after: the Hütte 5 lobby in Moganshan, converted from a bare village room to exposed brick and saturated colour. — Before and after: the lobby at Hütte 5.

Before and after: the Hütte 5 staircase, converted with brick, patterned tile risers and timber treads. — The staircase, before and after — concrete and green paint replaced by brick, folkloric tile risers and reclaimed timber treads.

Interior hallway in Hütte 5, Genco Berk's boutique retreat in Moganshan, China, with dark textured old-wood flooring, a bright orange accent wall, vertical wood paneling, and a turquoise guest-room door numbered 203 — likely recast from recycled container steel — with white robes hanging on a black rack. — A guest-room door made from recycled container steel, painted teal against reclaimed wood walls and flooring — old materials given a hard-edged new life, true to the project's "transform, not replace" philosophy.

Hallway with vibrant orange walls, mint green recycled steel guest room door numbered 202, warm wall sconces, and reclaimed wood-look flooring — *A teal blue steel door against saturated orange walls — recycled container steel repurposed as a guest room entrance, with the same weathered wood-grain flooring found throughout the property.*

Materials like these bring a sense of age and physicality that newly manufactured finishes simply cannot fake. Rather than hiding the wear and character of the old materials, we let them stay visible, and let them sit next to the new ones. The result is a working mixture: old and new, natural and industrial, rough and refined.

Before renovation: original village house with circular moon-gate doorway, round wooden door panel, and faded green walls — Hütte 5 by Genco Berk, Moganshan, China — After: exposed brick, reclaimed wood, and a jolt of vibrant green against the ceiling — the restrained palette with a spark of color that defines Hütte 5.

Rustic café dining area with reclaimed wood paneling and ceiling, exposed brick walls, pendant light, and light wood chairs — Hütte 5 by Genco Berk, Moganshan, China — *Reclaimed wood paneling and brick frame the café's dining area — a single pendant light the only soft touch in an otherwise raw, material-driven space, part of Hütte 5.*

The café and the living tree

The café is the project's most direct architectural connection to nature. An existing tree was not treated as something outside the building to design around; the roof was opened for it, and the trunk now grows through the interior. It reverses the usual relationship between inside and landscape. Instead of looking through a window at nature, a piece of the landscape has physically entered the room — and guests sit with it.

Café seating area at Hütte 5 with bright orange walls, reclaimed wood paneling, a tree trunk growing through the roof, and black-framed floor-to-ceiling windows — The café's living tree grows straight through the roof, framed by bold orange walls and floor-to-ceiling windows — a reversal of the usual relationship between building and landscape, part of Genco Berk's Hütte 5.

Café counter and entrance hallway at Hütte 5 with reclaimed wood-look flooring, orange walls, and black-framed glazing — *The same weathered, wood-grain flooring tiles that run through Hütte 5's main building continue here in the café — a quiet material thread tying the whole retreat together.*

The fireplace offered a different kind of connection, this time to local tradition. Bamboo formations were built around it, referencing the way bamboo and other materials have always been stored and stacked in the village. The material is entirely familiar here; its new architectural role inside a contemporary café is not.

A new life for an existing building

The significance of Hütte 5 lies less in any single material or feature than in the way the existing buildings were reinterpreted. We did not try to make the village houses look untouched, and we did not erase their origins either. The old buildings supplied the proportions, the location and the relationship to the landscape; the new interventions brought the larger openings, the contemporary surfaces, the industrial materials and the stronger connection between inside and outside.

Brick fireplace flanked by bundled split-bamboo wall panels, with leather armchairs and a round metal coffee table at Hütte 5 — *Split bamboo, bundled the way villagers have always stored it, reimagined as a sculptural wall treatment flanking the fireplace — local tradition given new architectural purpose in Hütte 5.*

The result is a retreat that sits deliberately between two conditions — the existing rural architecture and a new contemporary hospitality environment. For me, that was the essential opportunity of working with village buildings: not to reproduce the past, but to find a new architectural expression within it.