The Box Facing Outward | Youth Power Center
The BOX faces outward, located on Beijing’s Chaowai Street—one of the pioneering Urban Creative Space (UIC) blocks in China. As a vibrant and innovative creative hub, it offers a rich blend of offline and online experiences, aiming to cultivate a dynamic youth cultural network across China. By leveraging smart technology, THE BOX integrates innovative retail, art exhibitions, and entertainment to deliver personalized experiences for young people. Its mission is to become a landmark destination for China’s young elites, providing a one-stop experiential social venue for the new generation.
URF is dedicated to embodying the confidence of new youth culture and innovating the Chinese lifestyle, aligned with its corporate vision of “walking with young people.” The company continues to innovate and grow, aspiring to become a world-class comprehensive group driving “young power consumption.”
A Game Space with a Story
Young people today have distinct lifestyles, social habits, and consumption patterns, which translate into diverse spatial needs. How can we accommodate the social, experiential, and commercial demands of young elites within a limited space?
URF’s CURETAIL concept redefines the relationship between “people, products, and venues” by applying curatorial retail in a new commercial space. The space itself becomes a curated environment, with brands and products integrated as part of the exhibition.
Here, consumption transcends simple transactions, and retail evolves beyond just selling. By transforming curation into a new retail force characterized by scenarization, gamification, curation, and self-media, THE BOX offers consumers a deeply immersive cultural experience. Exhibitors can maximize impact through storytelling, cross-border collaboration, and flicker effects.
Atelier DYML and URF collaborated to bring THE BOX to life.
Breaking the Rules, Embracing Freedom
Creating a space for youthful innovation means moving beyond traditional commercial design rules. At THE BOX, we openly challenge and break free from outdated norms. The focus is on the dynamic relationship between space and brand, space and social economy, as well as space and events. This allows brands, operators, and users to continuously evolve and create engaging social platforms within spaces that are unrestricted by conventional rules, fostering free choice and creative incubation.
Historic Mall Revitalized with New Energy
THE BOX is part of an urban renewal project situated at 12 Chaoyangmen Outer Street in Beijing’s Chaoyang District.
Chaowai Street, once a bustling three-mile commercial strip lined with shops, has experienced decline over time due to changing commercial trends. Kuntai Mall faces renovation with the goal of reigniting urban vitality and young consumer power. The site borders Chaowai Street to the north, Fangcaodi West Street to the east, Chaowai South Street to the south, and Dongyue Temple Square and Shenlu Street to the west. The existing structure is a traditional commercial building with four floors above ground—five in some sections—and two floors underground. Floor heights measure 4.5 meters at the ground level and 4.2 meters on standard floors, covering a total area of 36,291 square meters.
Three-Part Division Creating Multi-Dimensional Space
Our design inserts a super-large box at the building’s center, dividing the existing structure into three volumes. This box connects spaces vertically and horizontally, breaking away from traditional commercial courtyard layouts and flow lines. Through curation, scenarization, and gamification, we create dynamic events that link these spaces.
The Super-Large Box
Within the super-large box, we preserved the existing column and beam structure but removed and reconfigured floor slabs to create a 360-degree flexible multipath space. This versatile area supports brand launches, debut performances, curated exhibitions, pop-up retail, and multimedia events simultaneously. The super-large box stands as a symmetrical, powerful, and striking yet sacred space for youthful ideals.
Aerial Basketball Court
Beijing’s first outdoor aerial basketball court is integrated into the large box, extending eastward and closely following the building’s outline. Below the elevated court, a skateboard area and “highway shops” combine to create a trendy street hub featuring well-known sports brands, popular coffee shops, and bar venues.
Graffiti Market
Extending from the large box’s south gate is Beijing’s first and longest graffiti market. We creatively repurpose existing walls as urban canvases for global street artists, forming an open-air gallery. Coupled with bustling street markets, this space becomes a weekend fashion hotspot alive with urban energy.
Artistic graffiti refreshes the east and south facades, preserving the original architecture while saving construction time, costs, and resources. This approach effectively cultivates an urban art street atmosphere.
Dongyue Temple Square
To the west of the large box lies Beijing’s first contemporary art faith square. Inspired by the natural philosophy of Dongyue Temple, this space blends sacred traditions with trendy culture. It serves as the preferred venue for large traditional and international cultural festivals, revitalizing the city’s spirit and vitality.
Open-Air Theater
On the northwest side of the large box, an immersive open-air theater descends to the basement level. Alongside creative lifestyle brands, it forms a living art habitat combining coffee, food, music, movies, books, curation, and performances on the lively Chaowai Street.
Free Camp
From the large box, ascending through the fourth floor of the Function Hall, visitors reach an open-air free campsite. This vibrant space hosts trendy nightclubs, outdoor movies, art installations, and leisure bars and clubs, creating a vibrant nightlife hub for young urban dwellers.
Major, Medium, and Minor Changes
Across the building’s façade—except for the new glass curtain wall on the super-large box—we extensively reused old materials in the renovation strategy.
No Fixed Forms, No Single Identity
Facing Chaowai Street’s north façade, we combined grid patterns with metal tension nets of varying openness. Hung on the existing walls in a layered, concave-convex fashion, this design reflects the language of a three-dimensional QR code, presenting THE BOX’s fresh identity devoid of fixed or singular characteristics.
Reflection and Transparency
On the west façade facing Dongyue Temple Square, mirror-finish stainless steel panels have been installed over the existing walls. These reflective surfaces blend with the surrounding environment and visually conceal the building’s mass, expressing reverence and humility toward Dongyue Temple Square.
Youthful energy acts as a driving force for urban renewal and challenges existing ideas. Atelier DYML is honored to collaborate with URF in creating THE BOX, exploring the limitless potential of Beijing as a city.
Project Information
Project Name: THE BOX Outward | Youth Power Center
Project Owner: URF Yingzhan · Youth Power Consumption Group
Location: No.12 Chaoyangmen Outer Street, Chaoyang District, Beijing
Project Type: Urban Renewal / Curatorial Retail Business
Building Area: 36,291.4 square meters
Construction Time: Soft Opening on 2022/12/25
Architectural Design: Atelier DYML Dayi Bright Architecture Firm
Scope of Design: Architectural and façade renovation
Design Services: From concept to preliminary design, construction drawing review, and construction coordination
Project Team: JOSH GOH, Hualiang, Lu Meng, He Mingzhi, Hu Tianchang, Zhang Dingwen, Xu Yun, Odemu, Yang Wanyu, Du Jun (Business), Ma Lisijia (Promotion)
Interior Design: COO
Landscape Design: AECOM
Construction Drawing: China Architecture Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd. (CADG)
Construction Contractor: Beijing Changjian Yancheng Construction Engineering Co., Ltd
Rendering: SAN
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