Project Location：Shenzhen            Building Area：1000 sqm    

Design Period：2014—2015            Status: Built                  Category: Cultural & Educational

Combination of tangible and intangible – interplay of functionality and space

Building #3 seems to be a quite ordinary frame-structured building of least feature on the site. Yet under this mediocre shell there lies a diverse possibility of spatial combination inside. To cope with the existing conditions and pay tributes to the quality and old spatial combination, various new functions are implanted here. The generous space on 1F serves as the education hall and concurrently badminton court. 1F and 2F in the south accommodate the cafeteria and offices. On 3F, the linear relationship with the former employee dorm is reserved and the youth hostel is planned. Shared kitchen and laundry rooms in the middle energize the singular accommodation function and create an activity center on this floor. Finally a garden farm is placed on the rooftop. Such an organic combination of the overall functionality with the space contributes to a micro complex for public education. 

Experiment on the idea of Urban Kitchen

To change the mediocre look of the whole building, a slope-roofed small house is inserted into 3F as a highlight. This small house accommodates Urban Kitchen that serves all urban dwellers and their informal interaction, and shapes up the sense of place and belongings in this mini-community. 

While keeping the original building frame to the maximum, efforts are made to realize the urbanism ideal implied byUrban Kitchen, i.e. to create a mixed-use small town and provoke the rethinking over the fast-growing industry and cities. 

To respond to the Urban Kitchen concept, a landscape designer is invited to conduct the agriculturally-themed landscape design, i.e. Mulberry Fields & Floating City, around the Building #3. The interplay of the architecture and landscaping calls for return of agricultural mindset, i.e. harmony of nature and human, above the industrial relic left over from the drastic development of Shekou, and re-examines the relation among people, society and nature.