Financial Town

The China Merchants Financial Town Exhibition Centre sits at the junction of Yuping and Jingrun roads in the High-tech Zone of Suzhou, developed by Suzhou China Merchants Rongxin Investment and with landscape architecture by Yiya Yuanjing. The defining condition is the hilly terrain, with large level changes and a dense but unlayered early urban woodland. Because the commercial-office buildings were already under construction, the landscape team - working with architecture and interior - redefined the building's programme and its relationship to its surroundings; the design area is also unusual, combining the plot inside the red line with a municipal woodland outside it that had to remain in public ownership. The team looked to literati landscape painting for a language that fuses architectural beauty with natural beauty, drawing a fluid design vocabulary from the site's texture to organise the main entrance, the route to the exhibition hall and the sequence of courtyards. The portal is an open civic square of artistic paving, cascading water and rising feature walls that point clearly toward the building, the car road winding uphill like a mountain stream, and a long woodland path threading between old and new trees. At the building, a cantilevered "heavenly pool" sits on a raised terrace, its fine water curtains falling on all sides like a waterfall, and a circular glass skylight in the pool floor projects rippling light into the lobby below. Upstairs, a still water court reflects the building and corridor, its "leap" sculpture animated by water, while a lower tea court with wooden decks and a "boat" sculpture evokes the fishermen's evening song. Beyond, a sun lawn with seating, a viewing pavilion and multi-tiered steps hosts receptions and will become a shared garden for future tenants. Together the heavenly pool, water court and tea court stage a dialogue between building and site in the idiom of Suzhou literati landscape.