Chengdu Tianfu New Area is the birthplace of China’s “park city” concept and practice. From large-scale urban planning down to detailed site development and individual buildings, every structure in Tianfu New Area plays a role in maintaining the park city philosophy. The goal is to provide citizens with an authentic and beautiful park city experience. The design of the Chengdu Tiantou International Community Contemporary Art Center exemplifies this commitment.
Tianfu New Area is among the earliest urban designs in China to fully embrace and implement the park city concept. It features large-scale ecological corridors arranged in a vertical and horizontal network, forming an ecological belt framework. The urban landscape consists of concentrated spatial clusters that expand into urban park nodes at key locations. For this project, the design team aimed to establish the Contemporary Art Center as a small-scale park node within Tianfu New Area, with all design strategies emerging from this foundational idea.
The planning approach incorporates three key strategies:
1. Creating pocket parks and street corner parks at small-scale points to bring the “city in the park” concept to a human scale;
2. Maintaining a high street frontage with a “street wall” effect, forming a continuous urban interface along major urban roads;
3. Dividing the large-scale vertical and horizontal ecological corridors from the overall urban plan into block-sized segments, distributing them throughout each block to connect seamlessly with the structural corridors.
The architectural design approach also follows three main principles:
1. Vertically extend the boundaries of ground-level pocket and street corner parks upward through vertical and roof greening. This approach allows greenery to permeate both the interior and exterior of the building, creating layered views of nature at close, medium, and distant levels;
2. To maintain a high street alignment, the building presents a clear and unified urban facade. The interior exhibition space avoids irregular or fragmented spaces, resulting in a simple parallelepiped volume measuring 24m x 36m x 24m. This form has earned the nickname “Fantasy Square”;
3. Integrate the green corridor axis, already reserved in upper-level planning, through this site. Transparent facade elements align with this axis, creating multiple viewing nodes that connect the interior exhibition flow with external landscapes. This design allows visitors to immerse themselves in the park city atmosphere even while inside the building.
The project reflects a seamless integration of built and ecological spaces, embodying the concept of “building in the garden, garden in the building.” This design delivers an experiential interpretation of the overarching “city in the garden, garden in the city” philosophy on a human scale.
Project Drawings
The Intertextual Relationship between Individual Buildings and Urban Parks
The Intertextual Relationship between Individual Buildings and Urban Parks
The Intertextual Relationship between Individual Buildings and Urban Parks
△ General Layout Plan
△ First Floor Plan
△ Second Floor Plan
△ Third Floor Plan
△ Roof Plan
△ Roof Plan
△ East Elevation View
△ West Elevation View
△ Block Generation Diagram
△ Anatomical Axonometric Diagram
△ Node Analysis Diagram
Project Information
Project Name: Chengdu Tiantou International Community Contemporary Art Center
Completion Year: 2022
Building Area: 2,500 square meters
Design Firms: China Architecture Group Southwest Architectural Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd. (executing unit), Bell Gaolin (landscape), MOD Moshen Design (interior), Shanghai Jinglan Architectural Design Co., Ltd. (original cooperation)
Contact: Zhu Ziye
Lead Architect: Zhu Ziye
Client: Chengdu Tiantou Real Estate Development Co., Ltd.
Collaborators: Southwest Architectural Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd. of China State Construction Engineering Corporation
Structural Design: Southwest Architectural Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd. of China State Construction Engineering Corporation
Landscape Design: Belgolin (Landscape)
Other Partners: China Construction Southwest Architectural Design and Research Institute Co., Ltd. (executing unit), MOD Mochen Design (interior), Shanghai Jinglan Architectural Design Co., Ltd. (original cooperation)
Design Team: Zhu Ziye, Li Jianshuo, Shen Yanjun, Gong Zeqi, Yang Jinke, Bai Jidong
Photographer: Pei Haoran
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