the Shanshui Experiment Complex by MAD

MAD, sometimes referred to as MAD studio or MAD architects is a studio that builds futuristic architecture based on contemporary interpretation of the eastern spirit of nature. Based in Beijing, China and Tokyo, Japan, MAD gained first international attention in 2006 when it was commissioned to design two residential towers in Mississauga, Canada. MAD partners with engineers, programmers, artists, landscape designers, energy and structural consultants from China, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States; committed to ingenious design solutions for international projects (see also the Ordos Museum in Inner Mongolia, which was completed by MAD in 2011.

The “Shanshui Experiment Complex” is their work presented during the Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture 2013 in Shenzhen. This is an artwork in-between architecture model and landscape installation, created based on MAD’s latest project, ‘Nanjing Zendai Thumb Plaza’. The total area of this urban design project is about 600,000 sqm and it is expected to be completed in 2017.

Taken from the project description (available here) :

“The historic city Nanjing is famous for the mountain and water landscape around the city, as well as its modern prosperities. With the culture, nature and history considered, we need to rethink how to define the boundary between the nature and the urban on this piece of empty plot in the new city development area. Is it possible to combine the high-density city with the atmosphere of the nature to create an energetic urban public space for the future, so people will re-connected their emotion with the nature?

The installation approaches those issues by creating a green open space spreading on the ground level of the city, where the natural and man-made landscape cross over with each other, existing in different dimensions both indoors and outdoors. The clear boundary of the site thus becomes blurred. While walking to their urban destination, people will feel as if they are sometimes walking in the nature. Above that, a series of buildings rise in the fog with flowing lines, changing smoothly as integrity, resolving the vertical power and the height competition, and the city skyline that used to be controlled by technology and power is now back to the artistic mood of faraway-so-close that our ancients have perceived in the nature.”

MAD's design embraces the advent of a new era. It reflects the office's architectural exploration of contemporary art and the transformation of lifestyle and multimedia formats in contemporary Chinese cities. MAD's research concerning the integration of digital media into architectural design demonstrates a unique approach towards architecture. Dedicated to understanding and exploring flexibility and new possibilities inherent in simple and traditional functions, MAD enhances these by means of new organizations and logics - analyzing value, desire, culture, and political strength in contemporary China. By treating these vectors as fluid and dynamic presentations of contemporary life, structures are no longer isolated objects as defined in architectural modernity; they become natural and coherent components of human life and the urban environment. [1]

[1] Ref. http://www.chinese-architects.com/en/mad/

Interview (designboom) : http://www.designboom.com/architecture/mad-architects-present-a-new-urban-scheme-for-nanjing-12-8-13/

Project fact-page : http://www.i-mad.com/enindex.aspx#artexh_details?wtid=0&id=31