Preface
When I first visited the school site, I was captivated by its serene setting: nestled among mountains under a clear blue sky, surrounded by lush greenery rather than crowded high-rise buildings. The terrain slopes gently from north to south, creating a peaceful and beautiful environment—an ideal location for a campus.
At the start of the design process, we envisioned a scene where, during brief breaks between classes, students could look up from campus corridors and see white clouds drifting across a clear sky. The clouds resembled vast stretches of white sand, while the sky felt like endless blue waves. The wind shapes these clouds into ever-changing forms, echoing the carefree and boundless dreams of youth.
Today, this vision has been brought to life before our eyes.
Yunnan’s Softness: Blurring Boundaries to Integrate Campus with Nature
Located on the mountainside, the building complex at Yuxi Hongyu Middle School in Yunnan Province stretches like white clouds blending with the natural landscape. From afar, the campus harmonizes effortlessly with its surroundings, revealing Yunnan’s distinct gentle beauty. Looking through the school gates, vibrant ecological greenery flourishes, as if nature itself is nurturing knowledge.
Yunnan’s mountainous region is rich in natural resources and boasts a unique ecosystem. Designing a campus here requires careful consideration of the local environment, regional culture, and the scale and function of the school. Equally important is managing construction costs—planning must align with budget constraints, ensuring practical and feasible design solutions.
In designing Yuxi Hongyu Middle School, we embraced these challenges and leveraged the site’s unique ecological features to create a campus that blends softly into its natural surroundings. This approach fosters a tranquil and comfortable atmosphere. The campus feels as if it naturally belongs to the landscape—light, subtle, and effortlessly integrated.
Sloping Terrain at the Mountain Edge: Designing in Harmony with Nature
The campus site lies adjacent to Longma Mountain to the north, featuring a natural slope from high in the north to low in the south, enveloped by lush green mountains. After thorough discussion, our design team agreed on the importance of preserving the purity and safety of the surrounding environment. We aimed to foster a meaningful dialogue between the campus buildings and the natural landscape, maximizing the ecological resources of the mountains as a key design consideration.
Consequently, the campus layout reduces the physical and visual dominance of buildings, aiming to harmonize civilization with ecology in a grounded, integrated way. We rejected rigid, stacked building arrangements, instead opting for fluid, natural curves that lightly touch the mountainside. The buildings’ light, curved facades resemble clouds gently resting on the slopes, with smooth off-white lines softening their presence. Bathed in sunlight, the architecture and mountains complement each other, enhancing the natural environment.
Tailored to local conditions, the design leverages the height differences to place parking and access routes below buildings, allowing the campus to grow organically within the mountainscape—quiet, modest, and free from noise and bustle.
3. Aerial Connectivity: Dynamic Links Enabling Campus Expansion
Middle school students face intense academic pressure, and our design uses smooth, gentle curves to help alleviate stress, while straight lines organize teaching functions efficiently. We emphasized planning accessible and fluid circulation paths. The campus’s ground floor is elevated, creating open upper platforms that connect buildings in multiple dimensions.
This three-dimensional circulation system offers seamless accessibility between buildings, allowing students and teachers to move freely and quickly throughout the campus. This balance between efficiency, openness, and accessibility fosters dynamic connections, enabling the campus to expand and adapt organically. The design supports an efficient, orderly environment that broadens learning opportunities and nurtures students’ limitless dreams.
4. Simple Yet Rich: Stepwise Setbacks Bring the Campus Closer to the Mountains
Strict cost control led us to simplify design elements, avoiding complex details and decorations to create clear, concise spaces. However, simplicity here does not mean dullness. By following the natural terrain, buildings rise and retreat step by step, with sliding volumes and stacked geometries that bring richness and dynamism to the campus.
This terraced design provides viewpoints scattered throughout the campus, popular spaces where students relax, exercise, read, or simply gaze at the surroundings.
Layered setbacks break down barriers between architecture, landscape, and interior spaces, blending reality and imagination to create a three-dimensional campus garden. Corridors are widened and integrated with multiple functions, connecting courtyards and central green areas to form engaging learning and social spaces.
Continuous overhead structures at the lower campus levels introduce a new teaching model that fosters communication and learning everywhere. All spaces connect through layered platforms, creating convenient circulation while offering diverse spatial experiences.
5. Introverted and Orderly: Spacious, Bright, and Inviting Campus Spaces
Classrooms are central to secondary education, and their indoor spaces are designed with a low-key approach to materials, strict cost control, and cleanliness. White is the dominant color, with accents limited to essential areas. Furniture and lighting predominantly feature white and natural ecological tones, aiming to preserve the building’s elegant atmosphere and create open, comfortable spaces for teaching, reading, and resting.
The design presents a warm yet dignified visual experience while ensuring functional integration and orderly circulation. This layout promotes student interaction, encourages creativity, and supports teaching methods that balance interaction, independent exploration, and innovation.
6. Efficient Construction: Balancing Low Cost and High Quality
The design and construction of Hongyu Middle School faced multiple constraints including budget, quality, and schedule. We focused on balancing these factors while meeting functional needs, prioritizing key areas, and empowering the design through collaboration and supervision with the school and partners. Despite challenges, we demonstrated that it is possible to build a high-quality campus within a limited budget, creating an efficient environment and a vibrant campus culture that combines modernity with affordability.
Message: Gazing at the Mountains and Embracing the Clouds, Looking Toward the Future
In September, Hongyu Middle School welcomed its inaugural class of students, set against the backdrop of the beautiful and verdant Longma Mountain. Every time we stand before its gates, we are filled with limitless hope for the future. We remember the young faces, full of determination as they strive on this inspiring land, where their dreams take root and grow.
The image of students gazing at the mountains and embracing the clouds on campus moves us deeply. With youthful hearts full of yearning and pursuit, our thoughts can flow freely like the clouds above.
Light and shadow dance, clouds and waves feel ethereal—the new campus is designed to offer students and teachers expanded opportunities for teaching and learning. Combining Yuxi’s lush mountains and waters, Hongyu Middle School creates a natural, ecological learning environment with rich spaces for communication, leisure, and integration with the surrounding city.
The campus aims to provide a positive and meaningful space for social interaction, to foster students’ potential, build their confidence, and lay a solid foundation for their future in society.
Project Drawings
△ Activity Space 01 – East Campus Exchange Courtyard
△ Activity Space 02 – West Campus Leisure Courtyard
△ Activity Space 03 – Terraced Viewing Platforms
△ Overall Axonometric Diagram
△ East Campus Exploded Axonometric Diagram
△ West Campus Exploded Axonometric Diagram
△ East Campus Elevated Floor
△ West Campus Elevated Floor
△ General Plan of Hongyu Middle School
△ First Floor Plan
△ Second Floor Plan
△ Third Floor Plan
△ Fourth Floor Plan
△ Fifth Floor Plan
△ Sixth Floor Plan
△ Roof Plan
△ Section Diagram
Project Information
Project Name: Yuxi Hongyu Middle School, Yunnan Province
Location: Yuxi, Yunnan
Lead Designer: Wang Tao
Design Team: Research Center for the Integration of Ideology, Education, and Industry
Design Members: Wang Tao, Chen Lifeng, Qu Haiwen, Tang Jie, Lu Qin, Li Wei, Qu Runqiu, Qiu Yiying
Scope: Integrated design of campus architecture, landscape, and interior
Client: Yuxi Hongyu High School Co., Ltd.
Construction Management: Yuxi Science and Education Innovation Investment Co., Ltd.
Collaborators: Yunnan Jianxue Comprehensive Design Institute Co., Ltd., Kunming Official Building Design Co., Ltd.
Geological Survey: Yunnan Yuxi Architectural Design Institute
Construction Contractor: Yuxi Sanhe Construction Engineering Co., Ltd.
Cost Consulting: Yunnan Lincheng Engineering Management Consulting Co., Ltd.
Supervision: Yunnan Century Yongli Engineering Management Consulting Co., Ltd.
Land Area: 71,500 square meters
Design Period: May 2020 – March 2023
Opening Date: September 2023
Must log in before commenting!
Sign Up