A cloud on the water

The Peking studio MAD has just completed the Cloudscape, the first pavilion in a series of new public buildings on the seashore of the island city of Haikou, in southern China. All bear the signature of a famous designer, giving the city with new avant garde cultural and architectural amenities Hainan, China’s smallest and southernmost province, includes the country’s largest island. Its capital is the port city of Haikou, a stop on the ancient maritime Silk Road and now a popular seaside destination on the South China Sea, separated from the mainland by the Qiongzhou Strait. Commissioned by the provincial authorities and supervised by Weng Ling, founder of the Arts China Union interdisciplinary platform, the Haikou’s Pavilions by the Seaside project will grace two of the city’s waterfront areas with sixteen new,

Client: Haikou Tourism & Culture Investment Holding Group Architectural design: MAD, Ma Yansong, Dang Qun, Yosuke Hayano (Principal Partners in Charge), Fu Changrui (Associate in Charge) Executive architect: East China Architectural Design and Research Institute Construction contractor: Yihuida Shimizu Concrete Facade consultant: RFR Shanghai Lighting consultant: Beijing Ning Field Lighting Design Signage design: 2x4 Beijing Interior design: Beijing Ling & BuYao Interior design

Author: Elena Franzoia Photo credits: ArchExist, CreatAR Images

iconic public buildings dedicated to the humanist disciplines. This ambitious initiative boasts the involvement of such internationally-famous figures as Sou Fujimoto, Thomas Heatherwick, Kengo Kuma, Bjarke Ingels and Anish Kapoor. It’s hardly surprising that this list of illustrious names also includes MAD, the Peking studio that has now gained an international reputation. MAD recently completed the first building, standing on the bay, the eagerly-anticipated sculptural Cloudscape. Located in Century Park and covering an area of almost 4,400 square metres, the southern section of the building’s sinuous cement shapes hosts a library with 10,000 books, reading rooms and multifunctional audiovisual areas, while the northern part is home to coffee bars, toilets, showers, children’s reading areas, public rest areas and hanging gardens. “Opening a new book is often an especially enjoyable moment for readers”, says MAD founder Ma Yansong. “It’s an adventure in the surreal or the unknown, a pleasant distancing from everyday reality. The Cloudscape experience is similar.

The architecture enables people to enter a building that’s far removed from our more familiar reality, and to set off on a new journey that transcends time and space. The complexity of the shapes, evoking underground caverns, deconstructs space layer by layer, giving readers a place they can inhabit with their imagination”. Organic and unexpected, the building’s 1,380 square metres define spaces that are constantly changing, and where the concepts and confines of exterior and interior, built and natural blend in a magical synergy. The flowing curves and deep-set circular openings recall the organic cavities carved out by the sea and marine wildlife, enabling light to flow into the building and generating a welcome cooling effect that mitigates the island’s tropical climate, with significant energy savings. The dazzling array of shapes, size and location of the openings and facades also allows users to enjoy the calm, relaxing views of sea and sky, encouraging adults to read and socialise and entrancing young kids, stimulating their imagination and their natural love of exploration and discovery. Tested using digital models, the building is entirely made of bare cement that entirely conceals the complex system installations. Ma Yansong describes the building as “A living ritual. Spirituality is the fundamental value of architecture. We want this public building to become an integral part of people’s daily lives. Architecture, art, human beings and nature are brought together here, opening up visitors’ imagination to a journey where they will discover the different types of beauty they can encounter in their lives”.