DSC Design has a reputation for turning traditional Chinese design on its head, recognising the iconic motifs from the old order and subverting them with colour and scale.

The studio’s latest project, Gui Temple Restaurant, does this for an entire building on Beijing’s north-south axis. Located alongside the 700-year-old Hong’en Taoist temple in the Doufuchi Hutong (only recently opened to the public itself), the restaurant retains the landmark’s ceremonial drama and venerable detail while injecting modernity and a few whimsical flourishes.

The 1,436-square-metre property benefits from long sightlines and voluminous spaces that the designers exploit. A grand carved wood archway has been brought in to span one wall of the dining room, framing a painted mural that looks partially excavated from old plaster.

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Photography: (c) Valley Vision Zhong Ziming

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Oversized shoji rice-paper screens show a hint of bamboo in profile, and between them, expensive leather upholstery is added to the black lacquer frames of dining chairs. Across the ceiling, concrete transoms and joists with a midcentury feel replace the original weathered stone versions. Most remarkably, DSC has replicated old decorative corbels and mounted them upside down along the deep coffered ceilings.

Elsewhere, the studio introduced wood panelling in bygone shades of teak that looks unmistakably contemporary, stacked in thin vertical strips and running the length of the long corridors. In contrast, bits of untreated weathered wood are expertly joined with quaint butterfly joints. To bring the courtyard scenery of ribbed hip-and-gable roofs and lacquered red pillars inside, the designers have added long banks of glazing along the dining room. And above it all sits a rooftop terrace, peeking over the original crenellations.

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