Sunner Group, a major company in China’s poultry industry, has developed an extensive breeding and processing network over the past four decades. To mark its achievements in agricultural science and technology, and to create a platform for industry exchange, the company commissioned a museum within its factory grounds in Guangze County, Nanping City, Fujian Province.
Designed by Beijing-based Atelier Alter Architects, the 6,800-square-metre Sunner Museum stands at the edge of the Wuyi Mountains, beside the Futun River, the largest tributary of Fujian’s Min River and a waterway central to the region’s ecology and culture. The museum is set within a landscape shaped by forests, water, and ordered agricultural infrastructure, including Sunner Group’s circular, low-pollution breeding system, which informed the building’s architectural response.
A landform within the mountains
The design adopts the concept of “recreating the mountain landscape” by embedding the building into its setting. Across a site area of 11,000 square metres, three gently rising, interlocking roof planes echo the undulating ridgelines of the Wuyi Mountains, forming sheltered courtyards while allowing clear circulation. These surfaces are accessible to visitors, offering panoramic views across the mountains, river, and factory grounds.
Material language and facade expression
The facade, inspired by the folded steel plates of retaining walls, is realised in textured concrete folded plates. These vary in form and function: at the base they suggest robust retaining walls, while around the entrance they combine with glass curtain walls to create transparent, welcoming interiors. Gaps in the folded surfaces bring light and views into the building, with diagonal textures facilitating drainage and discreetly concealing ventilation louvers.
Climate-responsive design
At the heart of the museum, four silo-shaped shear walls support the main exhibition hall. Between them, a 25-metre-high vertical atrium creates a column-free space suited to large-scale installations, illuminated by soft northern light from a skylight above. Beyond its spatial drama, the building is also conceived as a climate-responsive landform. The inclined roof ensures rapid drainage in Fujian’s humid summers, while a 600-millimetre-deep vegetated roof provides year-round insulation and biodiversity. Integrated sponge-city strategies — from permeable paving to sunken gardens — manage rainfall on site, reducing runoff and replenishing the local water ecology. Services and equipment are concealed within a dedicated roof layer, preserving the reading of the museum as a planted hill rising naturally from the landscape.
A civic and cultural landmark
The museum has become a focal point for industrial tourism in the Wuyi Mountains. By day, it presents the story of modern agriculture alongside broader cultural and natural history displays, while by night its roof platform opens freely to the public, extending its role as a civic space. In this way, the Sunner Museum redefines the relationship between industrial architecture and nature — an architectural expression of symbiosis, reflecting both ecological sensitivity and cultural identity.
