© Timothy Soar

• Architects: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris
• Location: 1 Roe St, Liverpool, Merseyside L1 1HL, UK
• Architect In Charge: Allford Hall Monaghan Morris
• Area: 4600.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2012
• Photographs: Timothy Soar

• Structural And Civil Engineer: Thomasons
• Building Services Engineer: Steven Hunt Associates
• Contractor: Mellwood Construction
• Client: Royal Court Theatre Trust

© Timothy Soar

From the architect. An amphitheatre of performance has existed on the Roe Street site since 1826. The original building was destroyed by fire in 1933 but the playhouse was rebuilt in 1938 as a beautiful Art Deco theatre in red brick. Surviving World War II and the Blitz, it was a rock concert venue until the late 20^th century and the building was awarded a Grade II listing in 1990, highlighting the fact that it is a major part of Liverpool’s heritage. Its current guardian, the Royal Court Theatre Trust, has rebuilt its audience attendance, first as a comedy club and then developing home-grown community driven theatre by Liverpool writers and actors. The building is a model of survival through reinvention – this project builds on the good work of the Royal Court Trust to continue that tradition for the next generation.

© Timothy Soar

Acts I and II have enhanced the experience of the audience by regenerating the existing auditorium and inefficient front of house areas. The auditorium has had new seating installed to all three tiers together with new toilets and a more modest colour scheme. The front of house areas from basement to second floors have been rationalised to provide generous circulation that is now centred around the existing listed marble stair linking the new extension and kiosk at ground floor to the circle bar, toilets and terrace at first.

© Timothy Soar

Within a modest budget the central approach was for the whole design team to work closely with the theatre, its staff and the existing building to create modest interventions that gave the theatre a new lease of life and the audience a memorable experience.

Plan 1

The design for the welcome centre extension drew inspiration from the painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper and sought to add another level or ‘stage’ on which the public can perform and add to the building’s character. Within this grand lobby the theatre was provided with a new box office, expanded ground floor kiosk and a separate stage door and waiting area for the actors. The servicing and maintenance strategies needed to be robust but flexible and were handled by the use of a polished concrete with underfloor heating and minimal ventilation and lighting contained within the ceiling. The interior and exterior materials were selected to highlight what is new yet complement the existing red brick and walnut panelling. The large, façade-fixed banner advertising was replaced with a digital display incorporated within the envelope of weathered steel, low level mosaic tiles and curved glazing.

© Timothy Soar

As extensive asbestos removal and demolition started to open up the interior spaces of the theatre we needed to be in constant communication with the contractor, design team and client. As work progressed the team realised that the building should be allowed to speak for itself and that a ‘less is more’, sympathetic approach to interventions was necessary. 

© Timothy Soar

The theatre remained open throughout construction providing numerous difficulties – not just maintaining the safety of the public. What enabled this to happen within a traditional form of procurement was the unique situation of the client and end user being located on site throughout the construction. This led to challenging discussions and meetings but the overall will of the client, design and construction teams to go a step further and see the work finished to a high standard exemplified by the existing building won through. The value of a collaborative team able to approach the project and its challenges in a transparent and honest manner has undoubtedly ensured the success of the theatre in perpetuity and forged relationships that will continue until all five phases are complete.

View 2

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In the 5th season of Mad Men, it’s June 1966, and Draper moves into his love nest with his young wife, Megan. The set was designed by Claudette Didul and the Mad Men team, and it’s a psychogram of a man who is about to fall apart at the seams.

Everything about the space is designed to be perfectly of its time. It has a white carpeted conversation pit for a living room, and a modernist kitchen with clashing colours. The masculine elements include a leather armchair, and a drum-shaped ice bucket. The design is inspired by the 1965 book “Decoration USA,” by Jose Wilson and Arthur Leaman, and the bestselling books of Betty Pepis. This is pop design, no high modernist masterpiece, it’s about pretending you are happy, rather than about civilization. A small indicator of depravity: the living room is over twice the size of the dining room. Who cares about table manners when your wife is half your age?

Courtesy of Archilogic

Perhaps the classic design decision that would never be made today is the way that the kitchen is screened off from the living and dining spaces. Kitchens now, thanks to the popularity of the kitchen island, are about public performance. But this kitchen, which Megan probably never spent much time in, is designed for efficiency rather than teppanyaki. The most social thing about the kitchen is the bar, which Draper, in his spiral into alcoholism, gives a heavy workout.

Then there’s the back rooms, increasingly small and private, where Draper is surrounded by closed doors. The division is what modernist architects call a “bi-nuclear” pan—one section of the house for social and daytime activities, the other for privacy and rest. For television series directors, they’re all equally good as arenas for emotional confrontations. Fittingly for his character, it’s in the back of the apartment, where direct sunlight never falls, that Draper tries to store his past, the world he made before 1966. Unfortunately for the children from his broken marriage, that past includes them. And off a small room that leads off his bedroom—behind more closed doors than any other room—is a small, completely windowless space, the heart of the heart of the apartment, a kind of cell, just big enough to lie down in. As Bert Cooper said in season one: “a man is whatever room he is in, and right now Donald Draper is in this room”

What this model of Don Draper’s apartment shows is a life built on divided ground; it’s impossible be good at everything: a bachelor and a father, a husband and a lover, to feed off the dreams of others and remain sober yourself.

Start the tour above, or via this link. The animation will guide you through different spaces in Don Draper’s apartment.

• The camera icon will repeat the animation.

• The floorplan, dollhouse and person icon change the viewing mode.

• The black menu bar on the right provides most importantly the account, interior and sharing menu.

Don’t miss Archilogic’s Virtual Looks Into The Eames Case Study House #8,  Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House,  Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #21 (The Bailey House),  Richard Neutra’s Unbuilt Case Study House #6 (The Omega House), and the Eames and Saarinen’s Case Study House #9 (The Entenza House).

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© Alejandro Arango

• Architects: Plan:b arquitectos
• Location: Rionegro-San Vicente Ferrer, San Vicente, Antioquia, Colombia
• Area: 1000.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Alejandro Arango

• Construction: Mejía Acevedo S.A.S.
• Client: Gobernación de Antioquia, VIVA (empresa de vivienda de Antioquia)
• Ecosystem: Wet montane forest
• Facing: East – West
• Direction Of Wind: North – West
• Structure: Concrete columns and beams
• Materials: Façades with “Buenaventura” Stone veneer + Windows in natural and colored glass + shingle roofing + concrete colored tiles
• Project Manager: Felipe Mesa + Federico Mesa
• Work Team: Carlos Blanco, Daniel Tobón
• Elevation (Above Sea Level): 2150 m
• Temperature: 17ºC

© Alejandro Arango

San Vicente Ferrer Community Center

This Community Center is part of a new network of small format public buildings which have been planned by the Government of Antioquia, distributed in eighty municipalities. This new network is a wide educational project with a public character in organization with the municipal communities, its aim is to make high quality education reach various regions of the department. All the community centers have a similar program and a unique public space. This kind of project set out by the Government of Antioquia allowed to do collaborative work between a group of representatives of the municipality, of the Government and the architects: through simple meetings the community expressed their wishes and needs regarding the educational and architectural project with texts and drawings. 

© Alejandro Arango

Section

© Alejandro Arango

San Vicente Ferrer is a municipality located in Eastern Antioquia at 2150 mts above sea level, in a mountainous region with a constant cold climate. 70% of its inhabitants are farmers. Its little center consists of an “organic” urban structure laid out on an irregular and steep topography. The allocated plot for the community center is located on the edge of the town center and is a fragment of a mountain which was previously cut and flattened on three sides of its perimeter, leaving an elevated and sloping surface.  The drawings and petitions of the community were consistent on the wish of having a building with a central patio and the possibility of having an open air theatre, requests which were articulated with the topographic characteristics of the plot and the educational program defined by the government.

The pedestrian and vehicular path which connects the community center with the urban center is articulated to a new access ramp which crosses the building and its stepped patio towards the public terraces of the roof from which one can observe the close landscape and circuit back to the town. This building wants to restore the mountain fragment which the earth movements left, increasing public spaces with its roofs and stepped patio; it can be crossed from the roof to the interior, o from the access ramp towards the patio, and its geometry is obtained from the contour lines of the land. The dark stone which was chosen to veneer its walls and the concrete tiles of its floors are connected to the traditional materials used in constructions of the region. Every interior space has a skylight orientated to receive indirect light, and the cold north-south air stream is obstructed with the arms of the building allowing a temperate climate in the interior patio which serves as an open air stage.

© Alejandro Arango

Plan

© Alejandro Arango

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Exterior Rendered Perspective. Image Courtesy of Google

Following the loss of part of their proposed site to LinkedIn and the subsequent reveal of an alternative site, Google has unveiled the revised plans for their Mountain View Campus. Designed by BIG and Heatherwick Studio, the original proposal featured several “Lego-like” buildings covered by glass canopies. The new proposal uses similar design decisions, with the building massing adjusted to the new site.

Courtesy of Google

The dome-like, glass structures of the original plan, however, have been replaced with a “photovoltaic integrated canopy skin” that drapes over the buildings like a tent. The canopy skin will allow for the generation of renewable energy on the site, and regulates “indoor climate, air quality and sound.” 

Site Sections

Courtesy of Google

Focusing on creating a sustainable campus, the proposal features a heavily landscaped master plan, as well as a focus on walkable, bike-friendly circulation throughout the campus. 

Courtesy of Google

Master Plan

As a whole, the reduced scale of the plan demonstrates a friendlier, more intimate scale than the previous proposal – perhaps in response to earlier concerns from Mountain View regarding business diversity and appropriateness to site.

The full plans can be viewed on the Mountain View city website. 

BIG and Heatherwick’s Futuristic Google HQ Proposal Loses to LinkedIn
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BIG and Heatherwick’s Google HQ to be Built with Robots
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News via Mountain View city website

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Courtesy of Mecanoo

A new cultural center designed by Mecanoo, located in the Longgang district of Shenzhen, China is currently under construction and is set to top out by end-April. With the goal of revitalizing an existing park-square, the new complex includes a variety of programs such as a bookshop, an art museum, a youth center, and a science center. The nearly 100,000 square-meter building is set to open to the public in 2018. 

Courtesy of Mecanoo

The building is organized by four elongated volumes that connect with the surrounding context. The building utilizes large arched passageways that connect pedestrian paths and provide shelter from the weather. Once completed, the cultural center will be 365 meters long, 45 meters wide, and 24 meters tall.

Courtesy of Mecanoo

Entrances to the various programs of the cultural center are marked by covered squares, allowing the interior to extend into outdoor spaces.

The exterior is designed with angled walls, which are built with cast-in-place concrete. These angled walls, span from two to four stories and dramatically increase the openness of the interior spaces. The cultural center also contains “super cores,” which are much stronger and larger than typical concrete cores. These “super cores,” in conjunction with the structural façade which contains embedded beams and columns, allow for the interior spaces to be more open, “clean,” and contemporary.

The cultural center won the 2016 Architectural Review MIPIM Future Projects Award in the Cultural Regeneration category.

Mecanoo Begins Work on Vast Cultural Centre in Shenzhen
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© Andrey Bezuglov

• Architects: Nika Vorotyntseva
• Location: Kiev, Ukraine, 02000
• Project Authors: Nika Vorotyntseva, Tatiana Sauliak, Marina Korak
• Area: 1200.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Andrey Bezuglov

© Andrey Bezuglov

HUB 4.0 – new, ultramodern form of office space, the place where the most progressive ukrainian developments concentrated.The space is consists of three floors.

Plan

© Andrey Bezuglov

The first floor welcomes guests with a massive panel with hot-metal logo that proceed to a light glass structure of stair railings. Elongated reception desk emphasized by bright dynamic lighting. Job seats are separated from the transit zone by the structural wall made of plywood.

© Andrey Bezuglov

The structure of the second floor provides easy portability of space and plenty of areas for informal communication. Coffee-points, windowsills-benches with soft cushions, a lounge area in a shape of amphitheater may serve as for a work, communication, and for making presentations, parties or lectures. On the third floor there are coworking, meeting rooms, skype room, as well as several thematic conference rooms. Open flowing spaces of press-points and reception-area tone to the business communication.

© Andrey Bezuglov

Plan

© Andrey Bezuglov

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Khoja Obi Garm is a Soviet sanatorium nestled high in the mountains of Tajikistan – a place known for its curative, radon-rich waters. When Maryam Omidi, a former journalist, visited in 2015 she was “blown away” by both the architecture and landscape: a enormous concrete, Brutalist block at the peak of a snow-capped mountain. She has since launched a Kickstarter campaign to develop a book of photographs exploring “the best sanatoriums” across the former Soviet Union.

“The treatments, such as ‘hot treatment radon water sprinkling method between legs’ and ‘friction and shaking with medical electrical equipment,’ were as peculiar as their names suggest. I remember walking into the swimming pool on my first day to be greeted by a group of Tajik women, totally naked, their pendulous bosoms bobbing up and down in the water and their smiles flashing gold teeth. These were the women I’d spend the next few days with – swimming, chatting, eating, dancing, and sweating it out in the sauna.”

Treatment in the sanitorium. Image Courtesy of Maryam Omidi

Kickstarter Proposal

Soviet architecture often conjures up images of monolithic building blocks, but the era’s sanatoriums are among the most diverse and experimental structures of that time. Similar to modern-day spas but with a strong medical component, Soviet workers would spend a week or two each year at a sanatorium, paid for by the state, so that they could recover from the exertions of their labour. 

This book will be the first to offer a comprehensive collection of photographs and text on Soviet-era sanatoriums, both their history, and, more importantly, their afterlives. To be clear: this isn’t ruin porn; the focus will be on those sanatoriums still in operation. The book will be an exploration of the utopian ideals that these sanatoriums were built upon, the unconventional treatments that they offer and the individual stories of those who visit them.

From the steppes of Kazakhstan to the wine-growing regions of Georgia, our team of six photographers and one writer will travel across the former Soviet Union to document the best sanatoriums from this era. Expect lush interiors, evocative portraiture and stunning architectural photography alongside in-depth interviews with guests and employees.

Courtesy of Maryam Omidi

A History of the Soviet Sanitorium

Today there are many sanatoriums sprinkled across the post-Soviet space in varying states of decay. Their construction began in 1920 and continued right up until the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to Professor Diane Koenker, by 1922, two weeks of annual holiday were enshrined in the labour code and at their peak in 1990, the Soviet Union’s sanatoriums could house more than half a million guests at any time.

The question of leisure was one that preoccupied Soviet thinkers; free time and work were not separate but connected with the former seen as a way of increasing productivity. The spirit of the annual sojourn was pithily captured in 1966 by S. Antonov, a metal fitter and model of socialist labour, who told a newspaper: “I receive my vacation once a year and I try not to waste a single day of it in idleness.”

Soviet workers were sent to sanatoriums once a year so that they could return refreshed and ready for work. Workers in the toughest industries, such as mining, were prioritised over others. Stays at sanatoriums were overseen by doctors; even sunbathing was monitored by health professionals. In addition to bathing in thermal waters and undergoing therapeutic mud treatments, sanatorium guests would engage in physical exercise and stick to a nutritious diet.

Photographers

© Claudine Doury

Claudine Doury is a Paris-based photographer. She received the Leica Oscar Barnack award in 1999, the World Press in 2000 and the Prix Niepce for her entire work in 2004. Her first monograph, Peuples de Sibérie, was published in 1999. Since then she has published Artek, un été en Crimée (2004), Loulan Beauty (2007) and Sasha (2011).

© Michal Solarski

Michal Solarski is an award-winning, London-based photographer whose work focuses on migration and memory. His work has been widely exhibited and published in numerous publications including the Guardian, Time, GQ and Vanity Fair among others. After finishing his masters in politics in Poland, Solarski moved to London to study at The London College of Communication where he received his second masters in documentary photography.

© Egor Rogalev

Egor Rogalev is an architectural and documentary photographer based in St Petersburg He is particularly interested in the Russian and Ukrainian suburbs where the simultaneous process of modernisation and decay is taking place. His work examines post-Soviet reality as a quintessential fragment of the larger pattern of modernity and tries to confront western stereotypes as well as the self-exotising visions based on them.

© Olya Ivanova

Olya Ivanova is a documentary photographer from Moscow with a fascination with the Russian village. Her work has been featured in a varity of publications including the Guardian, Monocle, the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph and Vice and exhibited around the world in galleries in Belgium, France, the UK, the US, Italy and Thailand. She is a graduate of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow and has a BA in Russian literature.

© Dmitry Lookianov

Dmitry Lookianov is an emerging talent on the Russian photographic scene. A graduate of the Moscow Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia, his series Instant Tomorrow examines issues related to globalisation from the perspective of the Moscow suburbs and high-rise buildings. For his most recent series, DKdance, Lookianov spent two years documenting what remains of the 18 Soviet Palaces of Culture in central Russia.

© Rene Fietzek

Berlin-based René Fietzek is a freelance photographer whose work has been published in numerous magazines including Vogue Germany and Neon. Aside from fashion photography, he has travelled extensively to countries such as Lebanon and Ethiopia to take photographs for NGOs. He is a graduate of visual communication in Hamburg and before that, theatre, film and media in Vienna.

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© Ulrich Stockhaus

• Architects: Philip Loskant Architekt
• Location: 6068 Kerns, Switzerland
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Ulrich Stockhaus

• Interior: Matthias Buser, Innenarchitekt, Zurich
• Execution: Architekturwerk AG, Sarnen
• Client: Frutt Resort AG, Melchsee-Frutt

© Ulrich Stockhaus

From the architect. The compound is situated just beside a lake, high up in the swiss mountains at an altitude of about 1900 meters above the sea. The small village of Melchsee-Frutt is the top station of a skiing area, in winter only accessible by a small cable car . The crystalline building cubes mark the edge between village and lake. Hotel and apartments face the rough landscape scenery and seem to become a part of it: four monumental rocks floating on a crystalline basement, just like mountains up on a mirroring lake. Recalling Bruno Taut’s expressionistic „Alpine Architektur“ from the 1920s, the buildings are a optimistic statement of how architecture and nature can become a „fantastic“ whole.

© Ulrich Stockhaus

The guest approaches the building from north, entering a welcoming courtyard. From this perspective, the four building volumes and their basement rim become sort of a crown, embracing the guest. From here on, the building does, what architecture is doing since millennia: protecting man against a wild and unexpectable nature –and from that save harbour, opening up ever new perspectives on that wild „outside“.

© Ulrich Stockhaus

In this sense, the glassy basement’s entry area, restaurant, bar and lounge are a „lodge“ at its best: offering all the commodities of a wooden, chalet like interior, they open up fantastic views on lake and mountains at the same time. Wherever interior and exterior meets, natural light is flooding the rooms. While reception, bar and lounge recall the free flowing shape and space of the exterior, the restaurant is boxing the space for the sake of commodity. In the evening hours, the lounge’s great fireplace is becoming the warm hart of the hotel – and the building basement itself becomes a warm glowing torch in the dark lonesome mountain wilderness.

Section

When the sun is gone, or on foggy and windy days, the SPA offers a different experience. Situated in the lower basement, it seems to be a strange and yet familiar world on its own. While the other public spaces have a more typical wooden chalet like interior, the wellness area recalls a natural experience: just like the outside shape of the building, the SPA’s interior seems to be a geometric interpretation of mountain caves. In fact, Melchsee-Frutt’s underworld embodies a gigantic cave system. Comparably, the SPA is a system of polygonal chambers, connected by short and narrow corridors. Starting with the intimate changing rooms, and varying on scale and light in the wooden sauna chambers, the space system finds it’s culminating in the cold bath: after a series of small, more dark rooms, the bath surprises with its large artificial top light, flooding the spacious „cave“ with a day bright light. Appendix of this experience is the hot bath and relaxing room, both opening panoramic views on the outer natural landscape.

© Ulrich Stockhaus

The up-floor hotel rooms are adept on family needs. The two-room family suites combine the commodity of a suite with a variety of sleeping possibilities for up to five people. Bay windows extend the rooms towards the outside and again open views on the landscape. Here, in the intimacy of the private rooms, the dualism of architecture and nature finds its peak: standing at the window, just wearing your pyjama, watching the sunrise over the snowy mountains. Civilization and wilderness, just divided by three thin layers of glass.

© Ulrich Stockhaus

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© Christoph Rokitta

• Architects: Nord Architecture And Exhibition
• Location: Berlin, Germany
• Area: 312.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Christoph Rokitta

• Design Team: Fabian Wichers, Jan Liebe, Rebeca Juárez, Jutta Kliesch
• Units: 2 Galeries, 1 Drawing Archive, 1 Studio
• Building Costs: 450.000,- Euro Gross

© Christoph Rokitta

Founded by the art historian Jan Philipp Fruehsorge and two belgian art collectors the gallery ensemble explores the medium of drawing. It is the only institution in Germany which exclusively focuses on the presentation and promotion of this particular field. The new location sits on the ground floor of  a prominent street corner in Berlin mitte. 

Model 1

The strategy for the conversion of the derelict space has been bold and subtle at the same time in order to provide generous spaces with maximum exposure to the streetlife. By that the gallery functions as a significant platform for the presentation of contemporary drawing.

© Christoph Rokitta

Scale

Even though this project was initially meant to be only an interior refurbishment it evolved to a more complex layering from urban to public and an almost domestic intimate scale. The sequence consists of exhibition spaces, the project space, an artist studio and the drawing archive. You enter them independently from the street but as a whole they are percieved as a series of showcases towards the city.

© Christoph Rokitta

© Christoph Rokitta

The juxtaposition of the large openings and the deep and low thresholds between the exhibition rooms create a fine balance of exposure and intimacy. Once you are inside the exhibition space large timber panels open up towards the more private areas as living, sleeping, archive, office and other services. They act as a filter according to use and the level of privacy needed for the rooms behind. From there domestic openings provide light and allow access to a common patio.

Plan 1

Aperture

The large windows are the key element in the intervention. Their dimension stands out in the sequence along brunnenstrasse. The glazing sits flush with the facade. Some of the windows are stepped creating an entrance niche towards the street and a deep threshold towards the inside – either used for display or sitting.

© Christoph Rokitta

The amount of sky present in the gallery spaces is unique. Built in textile screens filter the direct sunlight if needed in order to create appropriate light conditions for drawings. Small panels open up sidewards to ensure natural ventilation and at the same time not disrupting the glass plane.

Model 2

Surface

The gallery has a clear perceptible physical character. Three materials are used for all the internal surfaces. The floor consists of a special concrete mix based on gravel from berlin which is carefully sanded to expose the fine aggregate. The floorheating and all electrical outlets are embedded in the terrazzo like surface.  Several wooden elements as panels, built in shelves and furniture are made of european maple treated with a white pigmented oil since the client uses the same timber for his picture frames. A colorless off-white paint for walls and ceiling create a soft brightness to the exhibition spaces. For the external facade a light grey cement based rendering is applied similar to the color of the painted windows frames.

© Christoph Rokitta

Sustainability

According to the particular request of the client only eco friendly materials have been used. All exposed and unexposed wooden elements are eco certified and have a low grade of V.O.C. (volatile organic components). The insulating subfloor is made of foamed clay, all window frames and doors are treated with several layers of ecological stains and the paint applied throughout the interior walls is on a mineral base. The windows are triple glazed.

© Christoph Rokitta

Light

Linear T5 neon tubes are embedded in the ceiling and their alignment is always perpendicular to the street providing a homogeneous light when needed. The private spaces in contrast are lit punctually creating pools of light in a more atmospheric manner.

© Christoph Rokitta

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© Yang Chao Ying

• Architects: Crossboundaries
• Location: Zhengzhou, Henan, China
• Partners In Charge: Binke Lenhardt, DONG Hao
• Area: 28200.0 sqm
• Project Year: 2015
• Photographs: Yang Chao Ying

• Team: Tracey Loontjens, LI Zhenyu – Earlier Stage: Cristina Portoles, Brecht Van Acker, Filip Galuszka, Diego Caro
• Client: Soyoo Castle Enterprise Management Co., Ltd

From the architect. Since 2002, the overpopulated city of Zhengzhou has been developing its new financial center, Zhengdong New Area, within China’s Central Plains Economic Region. The area, once dubbed by international media as one of China’s largest “ghost districts”, is where Crossboundaries’ latest completed project – Soyoo Joyful Growth Center, is situated. The building is part of a triumvirate of desolate round buildings, never used since it was built as a business center 10 years ago.

© Yang Chao Ying

More Than a Building to Design, but a Vision to Lead

Practicing architecture in China is never just about the building. The practitioners can, if they are willing, be the architect’s second definition in the Oxford Dictionary: A person who is responsible for inventing or realizing a particular idea or project. At the beginning of Soyoo’s commission, a vision was put forward to “make a difference in Chinese education”. The conversation between Soyoo and Crossboundaries became a living brief defining what difference to make, starting from its pedagogic philosophy.  

© Yang Chao Ying

Through extensive research on education conducted by Crossboundaries, Soyoo embraced a holistic approach to education. It does not limit intellectual development through academic instruction. Instead, it actively cultivates each child’s distinct character and interest, as well as develops its healthy relationship with the people and knowledge of the world.

© Yang Chao Ying

The response Crossboundaries provided is a program based on role-playing. Children are free to explore what they should learn in order to become whoever they want to be on a particular day. Amidst the rising trend of learning through play, this novel and holistic program positions Soyoo as the leader in the booming market for children’s recreational facilities. While regulations for conventional educational facilities were well in place both internationally and in China, placing this program in a large existing structure required a new spatial typology.   

© Yang Chao Ying

Translating Holistic Education to a Spatial Textbook

From several entrances, children enter Soyoo into an open lobby on the ground floor with play frames and children’s retail stores. At the center of it, light shines through the sky light, eyes could be led through the fan-shaped swimming pool area.

The main program on the second floor, consists of spaces for reading, art, music, dance, geography, etc. They flow from one space to the next without barriers, suggesting knowledge is, rather than segmented, interconnected. This open plan layout encourages interaction between children and allows them to experience different subjects in a broader context. This program of the building extends to the third and fourth floor’s outside space. On the third floor are more learning areas, a planetarium and a green house, as well as a Soyoo operated Kindergarten. While the fourth floor, the roof, provides a running track and playgrounds.

© Yang Chao Ying

In addition to the existing vertical circulation within the building, Crossboundaries provides children with additional pathways. Five tubes of different colors cut through the building in different angles, deliberately breaking the rigidness of the floor plates. Similar to a subway system, these tubes intersect and lead children to different parts of the building.

A child begins in a color tube, allowing its interest to guide it through various fields of knowledge and explore their interconnections. The experience is never the same for any one child, depending on each visit, opening up a multitude of journeys in Soyoo, as well as in a universe of knowledge and social interactions. The spatial solution for Soyoo resonates international advisor Sir Ken Robinson’s philosophy on education. That it should be personalized and children should be exposed to an environment where they appreciate learning and discover passions.

© Yang Chao Ying

A Vital Contribution to the Residential Neighborhood

Required by the municipality, a percentage of the building’s original facade had to remain visible, to preserve its affinity to the other two buildings in the development. However, the original cladding of stone and aluminum did not reflect the building’s new function as a children facility. Its horizontality and large facade area added as much heaviness from outside as dullness inside. 

Master Plan

These challenges resulted in Crossboundaries’ innovative yet effective solution – lightweight ropes spanning from the existing roof to the ground. Installed diagonally and of double layering, they diminish the original building’s rigidness and add richness without blocking any light. To provide ease for orientation, the ropes’ color follows the same color palette as indoor – a color wheel. People weave around between the old facade and new ropes facade, touching them as they vibrate with the wind.

© Yang Chao Ying

A large public space opens up to the road intersection, easily accessible from all sides of the site. Benches and planting are offered to provide a pleasant environment beyond the building. This plaza isn’t just given to children to play but also to the city dwellers, as a place to relax and gather.

Section 2

Soyoo invigorates the numerous peripheral residential compounds built over the years. Its intriguing educational program and public space attracts a flow of people and businesses, neighboring retail spaces opening soon after construction began. The building as a whole creates coherence and connections within the community, adding vitality to a long disengaged residential neighborhood.

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