Porosity

 

Xiaomeisha Visitor Center Competition

Site: Shenzhen, Guangdong

Type: Visitor Center

Porosity is the play between concealing and disclosure. This design exploits porosity as a way of having several independent spaces interlinked as a whole, interior or exterior, one-level or multi-levels. Mountainous and valley-like spaces are created to manifest each other; various levels of terraces are visually connected to foster the dynamic experiences of visitors.

While continuous curvy walls and paths perform as definite guides of the movement, the skylights and openings blurred the definition and created opportunities for visual connection. Starting from the stairs at the center, visitors continuously ascend to the roof garden with their view leaked into various spaces.

The central auditorium being the core of this building is highly porous, interlinked the gallery and the cafe from the south side and north side. Two skylights and pathways underneath are inserted at both sides of the central auditorium as a buffer, thus they are spatially connected but not interrupting each other.