Sweeping curves of pristine white architectural elements dominate the left portion of this diptych composition, where Muchuan Xu's Jinan Cultural Sport and Archives Public Center reveals itself throug

Muchanan Xu's Public Center presents a masterwork of contemporary spatial choreography where pale honey-toned timber treads cascade through a luminous double-height volume, establishing a commanding c

Muchuan Xu's Public Center presents a soaring multi-level atrium interior where architectural volumetrics and luminous transparency converge to establish a civic spatial paradigm rooted in contemporar

Soaring white cantilevers sweep through the voluminous atrium of Muchuan Xu's Cultural Sport and Archives Public Center, establishing a dynamic spatial choreography that exemplifies contemporary insti

Muchuan Xu's Public Center presents a rhythmic architectural interior where cascading horizontal bands define the spatial hierarchy through a masterful interplay of structure, greenery, and integrated

Silver Interior Space and Exhibition Design · 2022

Jinan Cultural Sport and Archives Public Center

by Muchuan Xu, Minxi Cai and Xin Yan

A' Design Award 2022 Silver Winner in Interior Space and Exhibition Design
Awarded April 15, 2022
CLIENT: Vantree Design
Estimated Number of Design Views: 17,529
Verification code 38E543DC17 · Verify this award

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About Jinan Cultural Sport and Archives Public Center

Jinan Cultural Sport and Archives is an interior design for a public center in the Lixia district of Jinan. The center brings together archives, sports halls, cultural service facilities and senior care facilities. The atrium acts as a hub that connects the floors and leads visitors to each area. The circulation was reorganized, the escalator positions were adjusted, and unused public areas were turned into shared social spaces. Scattered green platforms on the atrium facade recall the mountains and rivers of Jinan.

Muchuan Xu's Jinan Cultural Sport and Archives Public Center exemplifies contemporary institutional architecture's embrace of biophilic principles, presenting a vision of public space where built environment and living nature exist in harmonious dialogue, the design emerging from traditions of organic modernism while addressing twenty-first century concerns for human wellness and environmental integration within urban cultural facilities. The composition captured here reveals the architect's sophisticated understanding of spatial choreography, with curvilinear white balconies creating a vertical garden that appears to breathe and grow within the built envelope, each tier supporting carefully curated plantings that range from architectural palms to delicate trailing specimens, their varied textures and green tonalities providing visual richness against the minimal white surfaces. The monumental timber stairway demonstrates equally refined material sensibility, its warm blonde planks offering tactile invitation and acoustic warmth that complement the cooler planted atrium, while the generous proportions transform mere circulation into civic theater where ascending and descending become contemplative experiences. Technical accomplishment manifests in the seamless integration of horticultural infrastructure within architectural form, the curved planters appearing as organic extensions of balcony edges rather than applied afterthoughts, while glass balustrades maintain visual transparency essential to the layered spatial experience. The interplay of natural light proves particularly masterful, with controlled penetration creating rhythmic shadow patterns that animate the stair surface while preserving the soft luminosity of the planted volumes. This work invites consideration of how contemporary public architecture might nurture human flourishing through thoughtful integration of natural elements, and how the boundaries between interior and garden, circulation and gathering, might dissolve into spaces that serve both practical function and contemplative renewal.

Press Kit

Unique Properties: Through the analysis of the functional blocks and the streamlines, combined with the needs of use, reorganize the relationship of the streamlines, the space is reconstructed, and the atrium blocks are connected as a hub to reconstruct the function of the place, disperse to various spaces. Implanting shared social functions in each space can serve the needs of people of different ages and different interests more widely, and provide people with different scales of communication space.
Dimensions & Packaging: In view of the loopholes in the existing spatial layout, we reconstructed the spatial relationship of the atrium. In view of the flow of people and functional configuration of each layer of space, we reconstructed the original plane. The irregular space on the first floor is organized to make the space more tidy and comfortable. Cut off the isolated space on the mezzanine, leaving more space for the first-floor atrium to optimize the space experience. From the second to fourth floors, we integrated the overall circulation, adjusted the position of the escalators, pushed and pulled the edge of the atrium without affecting the circulation, and used idle public spaces to implant shared communication spaces to enrich people's spatial experience.
Tags: landscape, hierarchical, cultural platform
Production Technology: We analyze the interior space of the building as a whole system, reconstruct the functional place, reorganize the dynamic relationship between the details and the whole. Combining the spiritual, humanistic, and space requirements of different venues to shape space, starting from people’s sense of experience, interactive social function needs, combining elements to shape the spirit of space, shaping the cultural and archives center through split, combination, and implant, shaping functional spaces, create more suitable communication spaces, and shape shared communities that serve local people.
Design Challenge: The irregular space on the first floor is reorganized to make the space more tidy and comfortable. Cut off the isolated space on the mezzanine, leaving more space for the first-floor atrium to optimize the space experience. From the second to fourth floors, we integrated the overall streamline, adjusted the position of the escalators, pushed and pulled the edge of the atrium without affecting the streamline, and used idle public spaces to implant shared communication spaces to enrich people's spatial experience. After the adjustment of the public corridor space, in response to the problem of single corridor space and low utilization, we added space nodes on each floor to enrich the space and people's interactive behaviors.
Project Duration: The project started in September 2019 and finished in June 2021 in Jinan, the purpose of the design of Jinan cultural sports and archives center is to provide people with different scales of communication space in Lixia district, Jinan.
Operation Flow: In order to provide citizens of different ages with an emerging style of cultural and sports center with diversified human scales, we have built the cultural and sports archives center into a shared space. People can communicate with each other and carry out various activities here to realize the sharing of functions and the sharing of civic culture. The cultural and sports archives center will become a landmark in the community, connecting the future of the city. It will become a carrier for the spread of Jinan culture, inheriting traditions and having distinctive characteristics of the times.
Research: The original architectural plan is a gathering place for social and cultural places. The archives, gymnasiums, cultural service facilities and senior care facilities are combined with four major functional blocks, and the atrium block is used as a hub to connect, and the urban public domains gather here from all directions.
A major goal of space remodeling is to optimize the use of the atrium. As the hub and facade of the entire cultural and sports center, people can't walk away from the connection of the atrium in the space. We hope to combine the local elements of Jinan to create a place for gathering and rest indoors, linking other spatial relationships.
Inspiration: Since the ancient times, there are many famous mountains and rivers in Jinan. We apply Jinan's landscape to the design of the venues to make them more characteristic of Jinan. In the atrium, we combined the landscape elements to create scattered green platforms on the facade to enrich the spatial relationship.
Image Credits: Copyrights belong to Vantree Design.
Patents: Copyrights belong to Vantree Design.

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