Dade Gallery

Dade Gallery occupies the fourth floor of a building in the OCT-LOFT creative park in Shenzhen, Guangdong. It functions simultaneously as a private space for the owner to receive friends, read and write, and as an open public gallery. The dual programme made two relationships central: between the space and its owner, and between the space and the exhibition. On the east side, full-height windows above 1.1 metres open onto a row of lush trees, beyond which city high-rises rise; the trees form a natural transition between gallery and city. The owner was drawn to this treetop embrace and to the clear morning light that streams deep into the space, so the design had to preserve and extend these natural phenomena indoors. Window heights were tuned to eye level so that looking out one sees only the canopy, not the towers beyond - a small adjustment that makes the gallery feel embedded in a forest rather than a city. The 75-square-metre gallery was originally legible end to end, with the window wall as its distant focal point. The design gently curves the wall surfaces, bending the otherwise rigid boundary so that light varies across the interior and the space itself flows. The owner can now walk through and sense the shifting colours, layered light and areas that expand or contract at the human scale. The result is a concrete and abstract nature that responds to the owner's urban longing for greenery. The curved walls also serve the exhibition programme: adjusted window height prevents direct sunlight on paintings, the wall rhythm suggests a circulation path, and the ends of the space curl into small enclaves for quiet viewing. The central walls remain relatively flat so that hanging pictures is undisturbed, while the folded edges create breathing room and buffer around each work. Although the walls around the gallery have doubled in number, visitors report a light, expansive feeling - the interior becomes an extension of the exterior into the building. The lead architect is Huang Zelin.