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MAD Architects reveals plans for Xinhee Design Center in Beijing

Suit and Tie

MAD Architects reveals plans for Xinhee Design Center in Beijing

Beijing-based MAD Architects have revealed designs for a roughly 657,000 square foot (61,000 square meter) headquarters for Chinese clothing designer and manufacturer Xinhee Group. In their designs for the massive headquarters, the architects utilized the fashion group’s multi-brand corporate structure as a guiding principle, designing a six-lobed complex of buildings joined at a central atrium. Each lobe of the radially-organized plan houses one of the company’s six clothing brands, creating a unified whole from discrete working parts.

In a meeting with AN last month, MAD Founding Principal Ma Yansong relayed the inspiration behind the center as a blend between pragmatism and nature, with many of the aspects of the building pulling double-duty socially and environmentally.

For example, the central atrium—which connects the various arms and employees of the company—allows the group to host grand fashion shows while simultaneously acting as a massive solar chimney for the building. It pulls cool air from ground-level gardens up through the structure, carrying away heat and exhaust along the way.

The structure’s sinuous floor plates seemingly dance around central cores contained within each of the six building sections. These floor plates vary in size and proportion across the complex, with some of the upper floors pulled back from the sloped facade, creating internal double- and triple-height spaces. The resulting array of stacked levels is clad in large sections of PTFE curtain wall panels that introduce dappled light. In the process, the PTFE makes the building appear lighter than it actually is. Yansong elaborated in a press release for the project, stating “It’s interesting for a building with such an intrinsically logical structure to look floating and free.”

Though renderings for the project have just been released, the Xinhee Design Center is currently under construction and is expected to be operational sometime in 2017.


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