Jiaxing Nanhu Future Plaza, designed by MAD Architects, is currently under construction. The project’s design began in 2019, and the grid shell phase was completed by the end of 2023. The curtain wall is currently being constructed.
The project includes three separate venues for science, culture, and commerce, with a land area of nearly 130,000 square meters and a total construction area of 180,000 square meters, of which the above-ground area is 72,000 square meters. MAD’s goal is to create an urban garden living space where people can come and go, meet and stay at any time, by exploring the integrated relationship between city, nature, and humanity.
The three venues are connected and formed into a whole by the white ceramic plate ring roof. The 6,000-square-meter circular lawn in the center has become an urban public space for citizens to gather. The organic roof forms a continuous, undulating, and flowing skyline. The 550,000 white ceramic panels are laid out in line with the curve of the roof, which echoes the traditional tile roofs of Nanshui Township while creating a soft, elegant, and agile architectural posture.
Under the white ceramic roof are functional venues for exhibitions, theaters, education, activities, interactive entertainment, and other functions with terraces set back toward the central lawn. The main body of the building and the roof overlap to form multiple urban gray spaces.
The 350-meter-long landscape corridor and running track on the second floor can lead to the central green space and the amphitheater and sunken square on the east side, providing citizens with pure land away from the complexity of the city.