Tomorrow the government has promised to take down the tree, so here are a few last moment shots of what the place looks like with a giant 50 year old 25m high tree.

The question of how we would heat The Orchid has always been a big one. Cooling is a bit more straightforward since there are only so many options that are in the slightly affordable range. But heating – so many possibilities. The Hutongs of Beijing have always been notorious for making it through the cold winters. In Beijing’s recent history even as close as those growing up here in the 80’s, the hutong winter life was painful. Getting out of bed was difficult enough, but simply thinking about managing the coal for the heating took up so much time, and in the event of a problem it wasn’t unheard of for many people to die of cold through the night. Modern Beijing’s hutong life has changed a lot —- since last year. The government has been briskly adding in power capacity throughout each neighbourhood, and then subsidizing electric heaters as well as the cost of the electricity from 10pm to 6am. It is still a more expensive proposition for many poor people living here, but the majority is quite happy about it. As far as efficiency is concerned, there are better ways to do things. And certainly the benefit of options comes more easily to those starting from scratch like us.

It was always in our mind to simultaneously increase comfort and raise electrical efficiency by using floor heating. We had hoped originally to somehow use a large array of solar water heaters to convert heat for both regular water consumption as well as floor heating, but this quickly started to look like we’d need an entire additional set of equipment to deal with all those days of inadequate sun. In the end we settled for air-source heat pumps. This is essentially what most people have sitting outside, attached to their indoor AC units, except the outside unit is far bigger. Due to 220V limitations we had to settle for a smaller size unit, and buy two of them to meet capacity. The benefit of these units are the fact that they handle normal AC in the summer and then do all water heating needs in the winter. Also they are the most efficient at providing hot water for floor heating in the winter than all other means available in the area. They also weigh 300kg each!

Receiving the units on the street, and marveling at their size

Our workers wondering if we’ve thought this through properly

Installation company attempting to use the wheelbarrow to move them in

No problem.

Now is when things begin getting extremely interesting. A major second floor being raised overnight adds a lot more dimension to the yard and makes it feel like everything is moving along towards our architectural renderings (stay tuned for those!).

Southern wall of the restaurant dining room is up!

View from the street. A few things missing —

Here’s a fun one. It took only one day for these walls and the facade of the stairwell to come up. Still a ways away from having stairs though, so views from up top will have to wait.

Oh – look at that — A new room has been made!

In only two days the structural walls have come up and all the support beams are in place to hold up the concrete ceiling. The grey brick facade has also been placed around the private garden. If we wall in the room with glass at the front as planned then this room will have a total area of 20 square meters. That’s a nice size room for a hotel, but a very generous room considering it will exist within a traditional courtyard in the hutongs of Beijing.

Siuming and Mr. Guo discussing the plans

Private garden space facing the room

Large bathroom area facing the stairs up to the unbuilt second floor

From the bathroom facing the unfinished wall and stairs

Looking out of the room towards the small private garden.