Cheng Dong – A Coherent City in China by Sangu Design

“There are three transformative ways for a city update: comprehensive renovation, functional change, and demolition and reconstruction,” says Gu Teng of Guangzhou-based architecture practice Sangu Design.

This fascinating public project, dubbed Cheng Dong – A Coherent City, renews an area in the city in the simplest way possible. Sangu Design improve the experience of the existing urban public space as an experiment, without pursuing an ‘extreme aesthetics’ that places a heavy demand on money and time.

“Incorporating artistic furnishings into the project and observing the expressions of people and the city is a process, which itself is an experiment,” says Teng. “It took me 40 days to record people’s perceptions and responses to the city, architecture, and art. I was very concerned about the responses of the elderly and children. And the result shows that it is necessary to find a project that can make people smile when they contact each other.”

Set within Qujiang New District in Xi’an, China, the project site was formerly an urban square with a two-story parking lot. Surrounded by urban roads, the site was eventually near-abandoned and covered with soil, with surrounding area mainly consisting of office buildings and residential communities. With Cheng Dong, Teng sought to combine the existing public space and artistic architecture.

Building No. 12 is open on all sides, the roof half open with the upper part of the building floating in the air. When entering the space, “people might be in a wrapped air field because of the blurred relationship between inside and outside spaces,” says Teng. Translucent balloon-like membranes create visual interest while acting as non-linear spatial divisions.

An open-air platform on top acts as leisure space or a viewing deck. The spaces are arranged in such a way that the building eliminates its own sense of architecture and boundary, allowing people to enter and exit without a clear perception of the border. No. 12 public building is the definition of existence in the greater community.