Chinese architecture studio MAD has revealed the recently completed Yabuli Entrepreneurs’ Congress Center, which is surrounded by mountains in northeast China.
Built within the Yabuli ski resort near the city of Harbin in northeast China, the conference centre was created as a permanent home for the Yabuli China Entrepreneurs Forum.
According to MAD, the building was designed to be a landmark structure that would represent the “entrepreneurial spirit” of the business organisation.
“We envisioned a building embedded in the mountain forest, a place of strong vitality and creativity to embody the entrepreneurs’ boldness and wisdom,” said the studio.
The four-storey building is built around a large 1,000-seat auditorium that occupies one side of the venue, while a series of smaller auditoriums, an exhibition hall and meeting rooms are on the other.
A large atrium topped with a skylight sits between the building’s two wings and the entire structure is covered with an overhanging, sinuous roof.
According to the studio, the conference centre’s form was designed to emulate the shape of the surrounding mountains, while the central skylight recalls a campfire.
“Nestled among Yabuli’s mountainous terrain, MAD’s scheme evokes the concept of a tent sitting at the foot of a mountain, with its soft, curving, silver-white rooftop echoing the snow-capped hills surrounding it,” said the studio.
“During the day, natural light floods the internal spaces through a giant glass skylight,” it continued.
“At night, the same skylight allows a warm glow to soar from the building into the cold mountain forest, evoking the image of a campfire around which entrepreneurs share ideas, thoughts, and stories.”
Beijing-based architecture studio MAD was established by Ma Yansong in 2004. It recently completed a kindergarten topped with a red rooftop playground in Beijng and a residential building in Beverly Hills that was designed to look like a village on top of a hill.
Photography is by ArchExist, unless otherwise stated.
Project credits:
Principal partners in charge: Ma Yansong, Dang Qun, Yosuke Hayano
Associate partners in charge: Liu Huiying, Tiffany Dahlen
Design team: Li Guangchong, Sun Shouquan, Deng Wei, Song Chi, Zhang Xiaomei, Huai Wei, Zhao Meng, Wang Shuobin, Zhang Yanru, Yuki Ishigami, Xiao Ying, Tian Jin
Client: China Entrepreneur Forum
Executive architects: China Architecture Design & Research Group
Façade Consultant: RFR Shanghai, Kighton Facade Landscape architects: BJF International Design
Interior Design Consultant: Shanghai Xian Dai Architectural decoration & landscape: Design Research Institute Co., Ltd.
Lighting consultant: Brandston Partnership Inc.
Signage consultant: Dongdao Creative Branding Group
Acoustics consultant: Beijing Tsinghua Tongheng Urban Planning & Design Institute
LEED consultant: AECOM Beijing
