A spiraling ramp, concealed volumes, and landscape-like massing organize this museum around movement, history and control of light.
Details: https://t.co/iqOEF0ox4s |📍Guanghan, Deyang, China
The Chinese city of Xi'an has a new neighbourhood. Designed by Heatherwick Studio and located south of the city's historic centre, the 155,000 square metre new Xi'an Centre Culture Business District (CCBD) features extensive ceramics in reference to the ancient capital's Terracotta Army and the legacy of local craftsmanship.
The new development includes a retail podium with walkable streets, terraces and open plazas, offices, apartments, accommodation and green spaces.
The streets converge at a central plaza where the Xi'an Tree, a new vertical park, creates a natural gathering point. Visitors can travel up its 56 elevated terraces (termed "petals") where a sequence of cascading gardens follows the biomes of the ancient Silk Route from the alpine tundra to the dry steppe.
In a statement, Thomas Heatherwick, founder and design director of Heatherwick studio, said:
"We were excited to create a commercial district which gave the city an extraordinary new piece of public space. Instead of simply making different buildings, and paving and planting the spaces between them, there was the opportunity to craft an unexpected three-dimensional urban landscape on many levels, where citizens of the city can promenade and meet each other. Pursuing our interest in people’s human scale experience of places, we also had the chance to integrate many special constructional details, to help make the project as engaging as possible for people to walk around. The goal of the whole project was to find a joyful and contemporary way to respond to the history of Xi’an, and bring people together.”
Xi'an Centre Culture Business District (CCBD) opened in December 2024.
📷 Heatherwick Studio