Futian Middle School, situated in the heart of Shenzhen, is among the largest boarding senior high schools in this special economic zone. Its exceptionally high building density and the complex urban environment make it a standout project in the “8+1” architectural exhibition of the 2018 Futian New Campus Action Plan. Challenging the traditional notion of separating campuses from cities, the redesigned Futian Middle School breaks down boundaries, promoting integration and sharing between the city and the school. This project pioneers a new concept: a “city within a city” campus.
Project Background: In 1980, when Shenzhen was designated as a “Special Economic Zone,” it was a small fishing village with a population of just 300,000. Its extensive coastline and proximity to Hong Kong gave it significant strategic importance. Since then, Shenzhen has undergone the fastest urbanization in human history, growing to nearly 18 million residents in just 44 years. This unprecedented urban growth serves as a double-edged sword: on one side, Shenzhen has become a powerhouse of innovation in China’s society and economy; on the other, the conflict between limited land and soaring demand for public infrastructure, especially educational facilities, has intensified. Although Shenzhen’s population rivals Beijing’s, its land area is only one-eighth that of Beijing. This scarcity has resulted in a severe shortage of public facilities, particularly school land, leaving the number of schools far behind the pace of urban expansion. Shenzhen faces the urgent need to rapidly build many primary and secondary schools, while land scarcity pushes these schools toward a new model of high-density campuses.
The Futian District, where the project is located, serves as the core area of Shenzhen’s special economic zone. The campus is just a few kilometers from downtown Futian, surrounded by a diverse urban fabric shaped by rapid urbanization. To the east lie the wetlands and continuous mountains of Hong Kong’s Mai Po Nature Reserve, along with crowded urban villages like Futian Village, one of the few remaining urban villages in the city center. To the west is an open urban green axis with a central park, beyond which rises the CBD skyline. The north, east, and south sides are enclosed by 100-meter-tall buildings, leaving only the west side open to Futian Road, the main city street. This site represents one of the last vacant lots in this high-density city center area.
The city’s drive for innovation was reflected in the design competition for Futian Middle School. Within the “8+1” Futian New Campus Action Plan, architects were tasked with fundamentally rethinking the concept of a campus. They were challenged to explore new types of school buildings capable of accommodating unprecedented density and adapting to new educational reforms. The goal was to redefine the role of modern campuses, establishing genuine, close-sharing relationships with the surrounding communities and creating a new paradigm of campus space.
The urban design strategy organizes the teaching towers and high-rise dormitories along the east and south edges of the site, while the playground is positioned on the west side. This layout forms a skyline that gradually descends from east to west, blending harmoniously with the existing urban fabric and gently transitioning toward the central park. The dormitory building, an imposing structure measuring 120 meters long and 50 meters high, integrates into its surroundings through a series of horizontal and vertical “cracks.” This design approach creates a transparent, spacious, and pleasant scale, avoiding any oppressive feeling for both the campus and its neighboring community.
Unlike most Chinese primary and secondary schools, where playgrounds are the focal point of the campus, Futian Middle School emphasizes an outward-looking approach. Multiple east-west visual corridors run parallel and slightly folded between teaching buildings, maximizing views toward the open central park and the undulating CBD skyline beyond. This design encourages students to engage with the city rather than isolate themselves, making them active observers of their urban environment.
A School Without Walls: In China, many primary and secondary school campuses function as isolated islands within cities, separated from their surrounding communities like small cities themselves. Despite ample facilities, their use is often restricted due to safety and management concerns, leading to inefficient utilization. Futian Middle School challenges this model by opening its cultural and sports facilities to the public, implementing flexible management strategies, and reducing redundant public construction. This approach is crucial in high-density urban areas where every square meter counts.
To accommodate all functional requirements on limited land, the playground was elevated to a platform 7.4 meters above street level on the west side. This creates a distinctive urban interface: instead of a solid wall, the school’s boundary along the main road features a transparent and inviting façade. Citizens can enter the social hall directly from the street, accessing cultural and sports facilities located beneath the playground platform. The dual-access hall, facing both the city and campus interiors, allows public use without disrupting student activities.
On weekends and during special events, the 13,600-square-meter cultural and sports complex — including basketball courts (both open and covered), volleyball and badminton courts, a gym, swimming pool, exhibition space, and a 1,000-seat auditorium — opens to the public. This transforms the school from a closed island into a true civic center.
To address the irregular plot shape and narrow entrance area, the design rotates the originally north-south oriented playground 15 degrees counterclockwise. This adjustment absorbs awkward corner spaces created by the irregular site boundaries and creates an expanded entrance plaza and a welcoming, open public interface on the southwest side. This nearly 1,000-square-meter plaza serves as a vibrant neighborhood park where local residents can relax and children can play and exercise.
The 400-meter track and field facility, occupying nearly half the playground area, is central to the school’s physical education program and the only standard track and field within a two-kilometer radius. Along with a natural grass football stadium and a grandstand seating over 3,000 spectators, the playground functions as a district-level sports complex. It provides professional sports venues for local residents on weekends and during school holidays, and hosts annual sports games for nearby schools.
A series of stairs and ramps on the west side, facing Futian Road, connect this elevated playground platform with the street level. The design also anticipates a future pedestrian bridge linking the campus to the central park across the street, creating a three-dimensional transportation network that will integrate public resources within the city.
The ultra-high-density campus meets the needs of Futian Middle School by transforming the original 41,000 square meter site into a boarding high school housing 60 classes and 3,000 students. The total building volume leads to a floor area ratio of 3.87 (excluding track and field buildings) — two to three times that of typical high schools. This earned the campus the nickname “king of high density” among the nine schools in the “8+1” Futian New Campus Action Plan.
Meeting strict regulations for sunlight, natural ventilation, and fire safety in such dense conditions is a significant challenge. The greatest difficulty lies in reducing the oppressive feeling associated with this density. To address this, the design employs two spatial strategies: a “porous campus” and a “multi-level ground.”
“Porous campus” is developed both horizontally and vertically. Horizontally, over half of the building volume is located beneath the elevated playground, creating a surprisingly spacious and relaxed campus atmosphere at the playground level — the true “artificial ground” of this high-density school. To ensure quality in the deep podium spaces below, the design incorporates numerous sunken courtyards that bring natural light and ventilation deep into the structure. These “under-board spaces” avoid feeling confined like basements and provide sheltered, naturally ventilated sports and leisure areas.
Vertically, elevated activity spaces on each floor of the dormitory and teaching buildings channel the southeast wind through the dense campus, creating breathable environments suited to the subtropical climate. These carefully crafted spaces introduce an intimate scale within the vast campus.
The multi-level ground strategy ensures campus quality despite intense development. A three-dimensional outdoor spatial arrangement maximizes nature’s presence by integrating architecture and landscape, indoor and outdoor environments. The design efficiently utilizes sunken courtyards, podium roofs, and building rooftops to expand outdoor and semi-outdoor activity spaces. A network of aerial corridors, elevated floors, and rooftop gardens delivers a rich, varied, and pleasant campus experience.
THE LOOP | Aerial Social Circle: More than just a transportation system, THE LOOP addresses a pressing challenge in a dense vertical campus: how to alleviate the congestion of 3,000 students moving between the 13-story dormitory and multiple high-rise teaching buildings. Elevators alone cannot handle this volume efficiently. The solution is an aerial social circle — a 400-meter elevated loop connecting teaching buildings and a 200-meter elevated floor in the dormitory.
This elevated pathway creates a “second ground” 20–30 meters above street level, serving as a shortcut between dormitories and classrooms. It divides the dormitory into two multi-story buildings linked by a central elevated level, forming a transportation system tailored for a vertical campus.
However, THE LOOP is more than just efficient transit. It’s a vibrant social space, designed not as the shortest path but as a coherent, engaging environment. Spanning the 6th and 7th floors of teaching buildings, it includes stairs, ramps, elevated floors, open-air theaters, and rooftop gardens.
The LOOP connects flexible classrooms, outdoor stair-step classrooms, and shared learning and fitness areas within dormitories. This network of informal social and innovative educational spaces fosters spontaneous interaction, collaboration, and creativity among students and teachers. The aerial social circle offers over 20 outdoor and semi-outdoor spaces of varied scales, heights, views, and enclosure, providing daily opportunities for discovery and engagement. It balances efficiency with personal experience, essential in a highly collective living environment.
Futian Middle School’s ecological campus is adjacent to a critical migratory bird corridor in Shenzhen. Before renovation, students witnessed flocks of birds resting on the sports field’s grass during migration seasons. The redesigned campus retains the high-east, low-west layout, with a natural grass football field preserving the original playground’s spatial memory and ecological connection to the central park, making the campus bird-friendly.
At the landscape level, the school is designed as a “sponge campus” fostering biodiversity. Rich greenery is integrated across the playground, podium roof, aerial activity loop, and tower rooftops, forming a three-dimensional ecological and rainwater management system. Teaching building rooftops vary between rooftop farms, gardens, and dedicated green roofs for bird habitation and foraging.
This multi-layered landscape network forms an interconnected ecological infrastructure, supporting functions like rainwater control and bird conservation. Additionally, a canyon nature museum within the podium offers interdisciplinary educational resources, combining geography, ecology, and natural sciences. This collaboration between designers and teachers provides students with outdoor classrooms and valuable learning experiences, making the campus itself a living textbook.
Project Drawings
△ Project Model
△ Analysis Chart
△ Function Diagram
△ First Floor Plan
△ Third Floor Plan
△ Sixth Floor Plan
△ Seventh Floor Plan
△ Section Diagram
△ Section Diagram
△ Sectional Perspective
△ Detailed Drawing
△ Detailed Drawing
△ Detailed Drawing
△ Axonometric Diagram
△ Canteen Axonometric Diagram
△ Sports Center Axonometric Drawing
△ Partial Explosion Diagram
△ Partial Explosion Diagram
△ Partial Explosion Diagram
△ Partial Explosion Diagram
Project Information
Architect: reMIX Critical Studio
Area: 120,774 m²
Project Year: 2023
Photographers: Hu Kangyu, Zhang Chao
Lead Architects: Chen Chen, Nicola Saladino, Lü Shoutuo, Federico Ruberto
Project Architect: Zhang Jiajia
Design Team: Chen Muzhi, Duan Jintong, Wang Yiren, Liu Yangyang, Xu Bingling, Chen Si, Chen Yuxuan, Tan Lu (competition stage); Alexandre Braleret, Wang Yiren, Marco Navarro, Nie Peng, Javier Pelaez, Xu Nuofan, Chen Si, Huang Jiahong, Wang Ruiting, Yao Jieqi (development stage)
Owners: Education Bureau of Futian District, Shenzhen; Public Works Department of Futian District, Shenzhen
Construction Agency: Shenzhen Vanke Urban Construction Management Co., Ltd
Lighting Consultant: Beijing Ningzhijing Lighting Design Co., Ltd
Landscape Design: Shenzhen Pai’er Landscape Planning and Design Consulting Co., Ltd
Collaborative Design Institute: Huayang International Design Group
Interior Design: Shenzhen Este Design Co., Ltd
Location: Shenzhen
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