MVRDV designs colourful stacked volumes for Shenzhen cultural complex
Dutch studio MVRDV has revealed designs for the Bihailou Art Village, a cultural development in Shenzhen, China, set to comprise a stack of colourful volumes.
Currently under construction in the Shatoujiao neighbourhood near the Hong Kong border, the 6,500-square-metre complex will contain cultural and retail spaces, including a museum and a double-height theatre, within its geometrically shaped volumes.
MVRDV conceptualised the proposal as a "vertical village", drawing on nearby homes and buildings for its assorted colours, shapes and materials.
"The joy of this design lies in its contradictions," studio co-founder Winy Maas said.
"It looks complex, but the idea of one space for every function is really quite simple."
"Though it may look like something that has never been done before, it is in fact a remix of the surrounding village: combining the colours, materials, and shapes of both its neighbours and the restaurant that once stood on this site," Maas added.
Rather than housing the programmes within one large volume, MVDRV opted for individual "houses" that could be tailored to their respective programmes.
Each volume has also been designed with its own entrance and will be connected to its neighbours via an external network of staircases, escalators and ramps.
This way, the studio explains, each programme can operate independently and determine its own opening hours.
The spaces will include a performance theatre, held within a spacious, double-height volume overlooking a plaza through a floor-to-ceiling opening.
Retractable chairs will feature in the space, allowing it to transform into an exhibition hall. Shops and restaurants will be held within the complex's smaller blocks.
Renders of the Bihailou Art Village reveal a combination of boxy, rounded and pitched volumes finished in various types of cladding.
A landscaped plaza will wrap around its ground level, complemented by a series of "freely accessible" roof terraces atop the volumes.
"The design is imbued with a kind of civic generosity, not only in the form of its permanent accessibility and public roof terraces, but also on the ground level, where the stacked shape creates overhangs where people can shelter from sun and rain," the studio said.
MVRDV was recently named winner of a competition to design a "new world wonder" in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Elsewhere, the studio wrapped Beijing roof tiles around a flagship store for Urban Revivo in Beijing and topped a "polite yet radical" housing block in Eindhoven with angular roofs.
The renders are courtesy of MVRDV.
The post MVRDV designs colourful stacked volumes for Shenzhen cultural complex appeared first on Dezeen.
