Press Release
Mio Path of Water Vacation House by Ke Chen, Mengxi Xu and Jiahua Xu Wins the Bronze A' Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
Ke Chen, Mengxi Xu and Jiahua Xu honored for architecture, building and structure design by the international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 18, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Mio Path of Water Vacation House by Ke Chen, Mengxi Xu and Jiahua Xu, designed for Not A Hotel, has been granted the Bronze A' Design Award in the Architecture, Building and Structure Design category. The result belongs to the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition and was reached through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who evaluated anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
What the Bronze A' Design Award Means
The Bronze A' Design Award is given to outstanding designs that showcase a high degree of creativity and practicality. It recognizes the dedication and skill of designers who produce work that stands out for its thoughtful development and innovative use of materials and technology. These designs are acknowledged for their professional execution and potential to influence industry standards positively. Winning this award highlights the designer's ability to blend form and function effectively, offering solutions that enhance people's lives and wellbeing.
More About Mio Path of Water Vacation House
Mio Path of Water is a vacation house designed for the rainy coastal climate of Yakushima, Japan. Guests arrive under a covered entrance and pass through a dry rain porch into a living and dining core that faces the ocean. Three bedroom suites branch off as quiet rooms, each with a private bathroom, so groups can share the house without losing privacy. A spa follows a simple loop of sauna, cold plunge, bath and cooling terrace. The structure combines steel with an exposed heavy timber roof, and charred cedar cladding protects the facade.
About Ke Chen, Mengxi Xu and Jiahua Xu
Ke Chen, Mengxi Xu and Jiahua Xu team is a design collective of three architects based in California, working across architecture, residential design, and digital workflows. Their practice combines experience in hospitality, mixed-use, and large-scale projects with a strong focus on local residential development in California. By integrating design methodology with technical coordination and digital processes, they contribute to project delivery across multiple scales, from single-family housing to complex building systems. In parallel, the team explores design-led products and small-batch fabrication, extending architectural thinking beyond buildings.
Award Record
With this recognition, Ke Chen, Mengxi Xu and Jiahua Xu is a winner of 1 A' Design Award.
About the A' Architecture, Building and Structure Design Award
The A' Architecture Design Award is an international architectural design competition recognizing good architectural designs by best architects worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to architectural design studios, building contractors, structural engineering firms and architecture and design consultants from all countries. Typical entries include skyscrapers, museums, residential buildings, commercial complexes, educational institutions and religious structures. The awarded architectural projects are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/architecture
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/180563
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/180563
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!180563
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/370540
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Mio Path of Water Vacation House
- Function
- Vacation House
- Category
- Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Discipline
- Spatial Design
- Industry
- Architecture
- Colors
- Dark Slate Gray, Dark Olive Green, Light Slate Gray, Dim Gray and Slate Gray
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Not A Hotel
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Ke Chen, Mengxi Xu and Jiahua Xu
- Country
- United States of America
- Recognition
- Bronze A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2025 - 2026
- Design ID
- #180563
Credits
- Team
- Ke Chen, Mengxi Xu and Jiahua Xu
- Image Credits
- Creator (Design Team Lead) Jiahua Xu, Yakushima Villa Concept (NOT A HOTEL 2026), 2026.; Creator (Design Team) Ke Chen, Yakushima Villa Concept (NOT A HOTEL 2026), 2026.; Creator (Design Team) Mengxi Xu, Yakushima Villa Concept (NOT A HOTEL 2026), 2026.
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- The project is on Yakushima’s maritime edge, where mist, downpour, and slow runoff are daily facts, the house is organized from the rooms outward. Each suite is a calibrated “channel” of water-as-experience: the shared areas stay quiet and supportive. Only after these three acts are set does the living space frame its context: sea at distance, pool nearby—two waters held on one calm line. The primary structure material of the house is steel—precise, slender, and resilient—so the rooms read cleanly. Only the living space departs from that language: here an exposed heavy-timber roof lifts the volume and warms it. The result is a house that makes weather into ambience, routine, and memory.
- Inspiration
- "Mio" is a shallow water channel in Japanese: not a scene, a guide. The project adopts that ethic—draw clear paths and let climate do the rest. What Mio proposes is to let private rooms carry climate as character—morning mist, sudden shower, still flow—while a single timbered hall reads the site without theatrics. The result is a house that makes weather into ambience, routine, and memory.
- Research
- Applied site-response study. Objective: Yakushima villa for rain/humidity, privacy, ocean views. Method: fast plan/section iterations + guest-flow loop tests. Data/tools: climate/topo maps, precedents; Rhino/Grasshopper, AI implemented representation, render checks. Participants: designer + peer critiques. Result: rain-porch entry, bedroom pods, sauna-plunge-bath loop. Insight/impact: fewer conflicts, higher comfort; reusable wet-climate layout template.
- Challenge
- The hardest challenge was reconciling Yakushima’s extreme rain, salt wind, and humidity with an open, resort-like lifestyle without turning the house into a sealed “box.” Internally, the concept had to respect local craft traditions while still feeling contemporary. Externally, strict competition limits (height, area, parking, pool/spa program) forced tight stacking and efficient circulation. Limited site-specific data pushed us to validate decisions through climate mapping, precedent benchmarking, and repeated plan/section tests until performance and experience aligned.
- Realization and Technology
- Designed through iterative massing + view studies in Rhino/Grasshopper, then coordinated for constructability and lifecycle cost. Adaptive-reuse strategy uses hybrid structure system of steel and heavy timber to maximize constructability. Facade system: Shou Sugi Ban (Yakisugi) cedar cladding rainscreen + low-iron glazed wall with concealed frames; modular standing seam metal roof for tolerance control. CG/diagrams produced via real-time rendering + AI/PS post-compositing.
- Operation and Interaction
- Guests arrive under the covered "porte-cochère" and enter a dry “rain porch” that transitions into the living/dining core facing the ocean. Bedrooms branch off like quiet nests, each with a private bath, so groups can share without stepping on each other’s rhythm. The spa is a simple loop: change - sauna - cold plunge - hot bath/shower - cool-down terrace, repeating as needed. Indoor and outdoor spaces slide into one another, letting the house work in sun, wind, and rain with minimal effort.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project was a design package for initiated in September 2025 and completed in February 2026 as a hospitality villa proposal for Yakushima, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan, and subsequently prepared for submission to the A’ Design Award.
- Specifications
- Height 9000 mm; Total floor area 298 sqm; construction area (incl. terraces) 586 sqm. Program: L/D, kitchen; 3 bedrooms each with 2× semi-double beds 1,200×1,950 mm + ensuite WC & shower. Spa: changing, sauna, cold plunge, bath, shower + adjacent cooling terrace. Pool depth 1,200 mm. Covered parking 2 bays. Outdoor equipment storage shed 70 sqm.
- Keywords
- Yakushima, hospitality villa, wet-climate design, rain porch, sauna loop, indoor-outdoor living, charred cedar façade, ocean-view courtyard, modular arcade, minimalist timber architecture
