LYCS Architecture won an invited competition for a 32,000 sqm testing and assessment research center in the city of Shenzhen. It is a mixed-use building including offices, residential and commercial. The project conceptually begins with the traditional Chinese urban design idea of a ‘miniature city’ and divides the site into 10 equal volumes. Then, the volumes are aligned corresponding to the scattered programs across the landscape. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The project maintains horizontal consistency while allowing for the necessary building components to address diverse and at times conflicting desires for the overall design concept. As the building volumes shift in plan according to programmatic adjacencies, the glass curtain walls remain continuous and the floor plates are consistently continuous. Meanwhile, the third floor is being dramatically transformed into a tessellated plate that twists horizontally to tension the homogenous facade and break the overall continuity of the design. Additionally, the external stairs break down the facade’s impassibly clean horizontal lines, allowing the design of the facade to function both in the big picture horizontally, and in precise detail diagonally.
