Adel town parent-child activity center

The Children's Activity Centre at Ado Town, Cangshan Mountain, Qingdao, is a 1,503-square-metre community building for Sunac Beijing. The design team, interiors by Qicheng Design, landscape by ACL, lighting by Beijing Guanghu Prism, structure by Xu Zheng, facade by Lu Qiyue and MEP by Fan Zhigang, was invited by Sunac to design a space whose meaning would be immediately legible, drawing on the team's earlier discussion of duck architecture, from the 1930s Long Island Big Duck that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The architects' 21-page submission contained almost no words: the building should say what it is, without literary apology. The result is a magic carpet rolled up from the ground and lifted to form a roof, leaving only distant mountain, sky and white ground, a bird's-eye view. Between roof and ground, adhesive threads of white vertical elements form a white jungle on the facade. The roof is more than 1,000 square metres; a washed-stone finish was intended, but double-curved construction pushed the team to adhesive-bound aggregate stone, normally used in sponge-city plazas, which proved ideal for a continuous roof. Drainage uses 1.5-centimetre linear channels along contour lines with siphonic outlets at the lowest point, stainless-steel covers that are nearly invisible. The lightweight roof is in fact a double-curved skin and ceiling, with variable-section curved beams and horizontal bracing between, and MEP routed within. Four independent function blocks, a multi-purpose hall, cinema, stairs and the 1918 cafe, sit beneath the roof, their gaps forming halls and corridors; the building is curated like an exhibition, with walls and roof as the display surfaces. Three glass sides and a droplet-shaped glass courtyard admit daylight onto curved interior walls, turning the interior by day into a white gallery and by night into a glowing facade. No structural columns are visible: they are hidden in variable interior walls, special-section curtain-wall columns, or decorative clusters under the eaves. The building opened on 30 September and drew 150,000 visitors over the National Day holiday, hosting a Marvel exhibition, cinema screenings, cafe life, dance and painting studios, and a nature study camp.