Hasta La Ideas

Chinese firm MAD has today unveiled plans for a village of towering apartment blocks beside the Huangshan Mountains in eastern China (+ slideshow).

Inspired by the topographical layers of the landscape, the buildings will have organically shaped floor plates and will emerge from amongst the treetops on a site beside the Taiping Lake.

MAD hopes that the new community will give many Chinese residents access to the impressive landscape that has inspired painters for many years.

“We hope that residents will not just look at the scenery, but see themselves in relation to this environment,” said MAD founder Ma Yansong. “In observing oneself, one perhaps begins to notice a different self than the one present in the city.”

The architect also explained how the poetry of the place inspired the design. “The impression we have of Taiping Lake in Huangshan is vague. Each visit to this place yields different views, different impressions. A bit mysterious, like ancient landscape paintings, never based on realism but rather, the imagination. This vague feeling is always poetic; it is obscure and indistinct,” he said.

Set to complete in 2014 , the community will accommodate 700 apartments, as well as a hotel and other community facilities.

Today we also reported that Chinese architects Neri&Hu think architects in China have lost their way, while last month Aric Chen, the creative director of Beijing Design Week, told Dezeen that China needs to “slow down”.

We’ve featured a few major projects in China recently, including Zaha Hadid’s Galaxy Soho complex in Beijing and Neri&Hu’s Design Republic Commune in Shanghai.

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Here’s some more information from MAD:

MAD unveils Huangshan Mountain Village

MAD Architects today unveiled plans for a high-density village near the Huangshan Mountains (Yellow Mountain) in Anhui Province, central China. The low-rise residences echo the contours of the surrounding topography and offer unequalled access to one of China’s most famous landscapes.

Modern people live in a competitive society with firm belief in efficiency; hence they find it difficult to understand why characters portrayed in Chinese paintings would brave torturous mountain paths to reach the top simply to enjoy a tea in a pavilion.

Located near Huangshan Mountains, the site of verdant scenery and limestone cliffs have long inspired artists and offered sheltered spaces for contemplation and reflection. Yet, as an increasingly popular tourist destination – further exposed by its UNESCO Heritage status – it risks to compromise this iconic landscape.

MAD’s design affirms the inherent significance of this landscape. Composed in deference to the local topography, the village provides housing, a hotel and communal amenities organized in a linked configuration across the southern slope of Taiping Lake. As its form evokes the geology of the region, the village blurs the boundaries between the geometries of architecture and nature.

For residents, the apartments will be a quiet retreat – an immersive, natural space. All apartments have spacious balconies which overlook the lake. Communal amenities and walking paths encourage residents to wander among the buildings. Each floor of each building is unique and accessed from shared social spaces, creating a seamless balance between private and public spaces. The same serene design sensibility of natural environment extends to the interior of the apartments. The use of local materials and the incorporation of plants and greenery enhance levels of comfort and well-being while simultaneously setting up a closer connection with local culture.

The village will have seven hundred apartments and is scheduled to be completed by 2014.

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Chinese architects MAD have sent us new images of a museum they completed earlier this year in the city of Ordos, in the Gobi desert.

Shaped like a large undulating blob, the Ordos Museum is clad in polished metal tiles that are resistant to frequently occurring sandstorms.

Galleries inside the museum are housed in smaller blobs, connected by bridges.

Entrances on both sides of the building allow local residents to use the atrium as a through-route.

You can watch a movie about the building here.

This isn’t the first high-profile project in Ordos, the newly constructed city for a million people – artist Ai Weiwei masterplanned 100 private villas by different architects there back in 2008 – see all our stories about the project here.

Photography is by Iwan Baan. More images of this project can be found on his website.

Here’s some more information from MAD:

MAD’s Ordos Museum Completes

Construction of the MAD designed Ordos Museum has recently been completed in fall 2011. Familiar yet distinct, the museum appears to have either landed in the desert from another world or to always have existed. From atop a dune- like urban plaza, the building is enriched with a convergence of naturalistic interiors, bathed in light. The result is a timeless architecture in a modern city of ruins.

Six years ago, the Inner Mongolia Ordos was an extended landscape of the majestic Gobi desert. Today, it is a urban centre mired in a common controversy in modern Chinese civilization: the conflict between the people’s long standing traditions and their dreams of the future. Architects are asked to develop the urban landscape and yet need to be mindful of the delicate sustenance of minority cultures and its future potentials. In 2005, the local bureaucrats established a new master plan for its city development. Upon the initialization of this master plan, MAD was commissioned by the Ordos city government to conceive a museum to be a centerpiece to the new great city.

Influenced by Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes, MAD envisioned a mysterious abstract form capable of fostering an alternate, timeless development of Chinese tradition and future. Whilst the surface of this shape functions as a metal container critical to protect the interior from the harsh winters and frequent sand storms of the region, metaphorically this external layer operates as a shield protecting the precious culture and history of the city from the unknown growth of the city. The museum appears to float over a waving sand hill, a gesture saluting the landscapes which have now been supplanted by the streets and buildings of the new cityscape. This plaza is now a favorite amongst the locals who gather their families and friends to explore, play or lounge in the pleasant landscape.

Entering the museum presents visitors with a strong contrast to the exterior: an airy monumental cave flushed with natural light through skylights. The cave links to a canyon which carves out a void between the galleries and exhibition hall and is brightly illuminated at the top. Patrons maneuver along the base of these primitive surroundings and through the light across mid-air tectonic bridges, reminiscent of the intersection of the past and the future of the Gobi landscape. Visitors will repeatedly cross these sky bridges and reflect upon their journey from a variety of picturesque vantages.

The local community, as well, is encouraged to pass through the base of the central canyon which connects the two public entries at opposite ends without entering the exhibition hall or galleries. The varying internalized flows of circulation are guided by a succession of light and shadow, at times mysteriously shaded and occasionally brilliantly bright yet consistently engaging.

For the museum employees, a south facing, naturally lit interior garden is shared by the office and research programmes of the museum, creating a natural work environment.

The completion of the museum has provided the local citizens a place to embrace and reflect upon the fast paced development of their city. People meet organically in the naturalistic landscapes of the museum, an intersection of natural and human development.


Location: Ordos, China Typology: Museum
Site Area: 27,760 sqm Building Area: 41, 227 sqm Building Height: 40 m

Directors: Ma Yansong, Yosuke Hayano, Dang Qun
Design Team: Shang Li, Andrew C. Bryant, Howard Jiho Kim, Matthias Helmreich, Linda Stannieder, Zheng Tao, Qin Lichao, , Sun Jieming, Yin Zhao, Du Zhijian, Yuan Zhongwei, Yuan Ta, Xie Xinyu, Liu Weiwei, Felipe Escudero, Sophia Tang, Diego Perez, Art Terry, Jtravis B Russett, Dustin Harris

Associate Engineers: China Institute of Building Standard Design & Research Mechanical Engineer: The Institute of Shanxi Architectural Design and Research
Façade/cladding Consultants: SuP Ingenieure GmbH, Melendez & Dickinson Architects Construction Contractor: Huhehaote construction Co., Ltd
Façade Contractor: Zhuhai King Glass Engineering CO.LTD

Beijing architects MAD have unveiled their design for a 200m-long, icicle-shaped museum in Harbin, northeast China.

The museum, which will be dedicated to Chinese wood sculptures, is the first of a trio of cultural buildings in the city designed by MAD.

Construction work on the museum is already underway and an opera house and a cultural centre, both designed by MAD, will also be built in Harbin.

Harbin is capital of Heilongjiang Province in northeast China and is best known as home of the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, which takes place each year in January.

See more Dezeen stories about MAD.
See all our stories about museums.

Here’s some info from MAD:

MAD designs China Wood Sculpture Museum in Harbin

Beijing, January 08, 2011 – MAD today unveiled their new museum for Chinese wood sculptures in Harbin. As the main city of Northern China, Harbin is in the process of defining itself as a regional hub for the arts at a time when the historic city is rapidly expanding.

Inspired by the unique local winter landscapes, the museum is a contrast between the elegance of nature and the speed of daily life. Its 200 meter long body is shaped as a frozen fluid that reflects and explores the relation between the building and the environment.

The interior of the museum combines two different exhibitions connected by a centralized entrance which both separates the two museums while simultaneously joining them, achieving a symbiotic relationship. Skylights flood daylight into the voids adjacent to the galleries, creating optimum viewing conditions and scenic moments in and around the building.

MAD was commissioned to design three cultural building in 2009; the structure of the museum was recently completed while the design for an opera house and cultural centre is to be finished in February.

About MAD – Beijing based MAD is dedicated to innovation in architectural practice. As a leading voice in the new generation of design, MAD examines and develops unique futuristic solutions, exploring a renewed understanding of nature and advanced technology. MAD defines architecture as a man-made symbiosis, in harmony with nature, giving people the freedom to develop their own independent urban experience.

The work of MAD has been exhibited worldwide. Most recently founding Architect Ma Yansong was awarded with a RIBA International fellowship, making him the first Chinese architect to receive this prize.

MAD currently has 9 projects under construction including: the Absolute Towers near Toronto and the Erdos Museum in Inner Mongolia, the Sinosteel International Plaza, a 358M high-rise building in Tianjin, and the Urban Forest Highrise in Chong Qing.

Beijing architects MAD have designed a skyscraper for Chongqing, China, with gardens at each level. (more…)