From cave dwellings to vertical living, the idea of home has always adapted to technology and materials. In Chengdu’s high-rise Financial City, we step away from the generic curtain-wall aesthetic and return to the fundamentals of living—layering gardens within a tower to imagine an “ecological dwelling body” in the urban sky. —Meng Fanhao

On September 20, 2024, Shell Group won Parcel H12 in Phase III of Chengdu’s Financial City after bidding against 13 other developers. With a price of RMB 1.076 billion and a record-breaking floor rate, the project marked Shell’s first foray into land acquisition and independent development. line+ Co-Founder and Chief Architect Meng Fanhao was commissioned by Shell Group to lead the project. Collaborating with its housing brand Beike Good Home, he oversaw a co-creative process spanning development strategy, master planning, unit typology, façade system, and implementation—delivering a model defined by customization and systemic innovation. The project has now broken ground, with the show area set to open in September.

Part 01

Innovating Development Models: C2M Collaborative Co-Creation

The conventional housing model is largely top-down: developers define market positioning, architects deliver accordingly, and design follows a linear, one-way chain. In this project, Beike Good Home introduced a C2M (Customer-to-Manufacturer) model—its first application in real estate—leveraging digital tools to invert the process. Through big data and AI-driven analytics, user needs were identified early on, directly informing product development, architectural design, and supply chain collaboration. This reframed the workflow as a multi-party co-creation between developer, architect, and future residents.

Unlike the traditional process where designers respond to a brief, the architects here were involved from the outset—decoding user behavior and data to shape every layer of the experience. From tower orientation and unit function to façade preference, public amenities, and landscape atmosphere, each design parameter was tied to how people actually live.

In response to growing demand for something different, line+ Co-Founder and Chief Architect Meng Fanhao proposed a departure from formulaic residential styles. In the cool, commercial tone of Financial City, he envisioned something more relaxed, ecological, and human—an idea that strongly resonated during user research. At the heart of the project lies a single intent: to return to the essence of living by creating an “ecological dwelling body” in the city.

Part 02

Petal-Shaped Layout Oriented by Site Resources

Set in the heart of Chengdu Financial City, just two kilometers from the Twin Towers, the site lies along the city’s second central axis and is surrounded by major commercial resources. Rectangular in shape and enclosed by arterial roads, it faces the Phase III TOD landscape core to the northwest and borders the Ring Park to the south.

While most Chinese residential planning adheres rigidly to north-south slab blocks, Chengdu’s greater tolerance for unit orientation allowed this project to prioritize views. All four towers are angled toward the city’s northwest green axis, freeing up the site’s center by placing towers diagonally at the corners instead of lining the edges. This layout opens space for a porous ground plane, welcoming multiple entries, pedestrian paths, and pockets of green.

To amplify the connection between indoor living and the urban landscape, the buildings adopt a softened, curved massing. Courtyards interweave with functional zones, minimizing direct visual contact between units. One tower on the southeast was slightly reoriented to optimize views from its corridors.

At the center, a sunken courtyard and pocket gardens anchor the scheme. First-floor pilotis connect the towers, creating a fluid, open framework where architecture, greenery, and circulation merge into a continuous experience.

Part 03

Unit Innovation ofthe Sky Quad-Courtyard

Conventional apartment plans often organize all functions around a central corridor, prioritizing efficiency and compactness. But as units grow larger and lifestyles more layered, spatial clarity becomes key—public zones for hosting and gathering, private zones for rest and retreat, with carefully calibrated connections in between.

Here, the design restructures the plan by placing living and social areas at opposite ends of the unit, anchored by an entry vestibule that acts as a threshold between public and private life. Four "sky gardens" are woven into the sequence: a semi-private pocket garden near the elevator hall, a waiting garden at the foyer, a sunken panoramic garden off the living room, and a secluded green terrace connected to the master suite. These moments of vertical greenery blur the boundary between enclosure and openness, shaping a spatial experience that is at once intimate, breathable, and alive with nature.

Each of the four gardens mediates between domestic space and the surrounding environment. They extend the visual field, soften edges, and foster a dynamic relationship between architecture, everyday life, and landscape.

To ensure visual privacy between adjacent units, the design avoids symmetrical mirrored layouts. Both units orient their L-shaped living spaces northwestward using corner glazing for unified views. Where units face each other, one party’s façade incorporates a solid wall to prevent direct sightlines. Between towers, additional measures—such as offset balconies and localized solid wall segments near the master bedrooms—diffuse visual overlap and soften the sense of being overlooked.

Part 04

A Facade Design Balancing Biomimetic Aesthetics and FunctionalRationality

To live in harmony with nature is a timeless human desire—one that continues to shape our aspirations for better homes.

The façade design embraces this sensibility through a language of biomorphic forms and ecological rhythm. Informed by the X-shaped unit plan, the elevations are composed of flowing, layered outlines that shift subtly across levels. Rather than defaulting to the cool grays that dominate contemporary housing, the palette opts for warm, low-saturation tones—expressed in soft, textured finishes that lend a sense of lived-in calm.

To balance visual openness and expressive geometry, horizontal projections between floors are tightly controlled within 450mm and 850mm modules. This maintains a strong sculptural profile while preserving downward views from within. Where the building faces the primary landscape axis, the façade avoids obstructing views; along the inner garden edge, the upper soffits are recessed to improve outlooks for lower units.

The sky gardens adopt a petal-like form—a nod to Shell’s design language—distilled through rigorous material testing. After comparing UHPC, terracotta, and stainless steel, the team chose a stone-textured aluminum panel system for its precision and feasibility. Railings are finished in a brushed copper-tone metal mesh, designed to eventually disappear beneath a cascade of trailing greenery.

The nearly 9-meter-tall ground-level pilotis use vertical UHPC components (including extended eaves) combined with suspended panels in a UHPC-like finish—balancing structural clarity with construction efficiency and long-term safety.

All drainage systems are fully concealed within the building envelope, with no visible vertical or horizontal pipes. For deeper overhangs, internal gutters and horizontal conduits are integrated; for smaller projections, deep silicone joints and drip detailing are used to prevent staining.

Part 05

A SeamlesslyIntegrated Vertical Eco-System

The sunken courtyard draws light and greenery down into the subterranean level, turning below-grade spaces into part of the landscape experience. Through ramps and stepped terraces, it connects the central garden with the elevated podium gardens, allowing nature to flow continuously across levels—bringing microclimate comfort and a sense of ease to the lobby and neighborhood gathering spaces.

From underground to rooftop, vegetation becomes a structural element. The living façade emerges not as a surface treatment but as a spatial continuum—blurring the line between public and private, architecture and nature, to reimagine the high-rise as an ecological dwelling in vertical form.

Part 06

Front-Loading 1:1 Mock-Up: From Process Validation to Design Advancement

Unlike typical residential workflows where mock-ups serve only for pre-construction validation, this project positioned the mock-up as a driver of design itself. By prototyping three independent façade assemblies at full scale—wall panels, balcony railings, and material junctions—the team tested combinations of texture, color, and buildability early in the process, using real-world feedback to fine-tune the final façade system.

Part 07

Conclusion

This collaboration with Shell Group demonstrated the potential of C2M to align design with development through real-time, user-driven input. More importantly, it challenged us to think from the perspective of future residents—to anticipate and resolve invisible frictions before they arise. That, we believe, is the essence of good design as much as it is of good product.

Through this process, we witnessed housing shift from standardized templates to tailored living; from space as container to space as experience. Moving forward, line+ will continue to use design as a driving force to explore what better living can mean in the Chinese urban context.

Project Name: THE OASIS

Design Firm: line+ studio
Chief Architect/Project Principal: Meng Fanhao
Design Team: Zhu Mingsong, Zhu Min, Zheng Jingwei, Wang Yubin, Li Sanjian, Zhu Xiaojing, Shi Yuhang, Ding Jian, Xie Yuting

Client: KE Holdings Inc. · Beike Good Home

Interior Design: Cheng Chung Design (CCD), Hong Kong

Landscape Design: WTD Landscape Design

Construction Drawings: Joyou Technology Group Co., Ltd.

Façade Consultant: TAM

Lighting Design: MoA

Signage Design: Boxi Signage, Shanghai

Location: Phase III, Financial City, Jinjiang District, Chengdu
Building Area: 59,580.72 m² (43,438.80 m² above ground, 16,141.92 m² underground including semi-basement)

Design Period: 09/2024 – 05/2025
Construction Period: 01/2025 – Ongoing
Structure: Frame–Shear Wall System
Materials: UHPC, Stone-textured aluminum panels, Glass
Renderings: Mir, Danlab, line+

* The renderings shown are design representations from the proposal stage. Final outcomes are subject to the government-approved detailed design and actual built conditions. The developer reserves the right of final interpretation.