For an art center, landscape is more than a layer of greenery surrounding the architecture, or a collection of visual focal points and photo opportunities. More importantly, it should contribute to the overall spatial experience from the very first moment visitors arrive.
The design of Qujiang Yin Art Center began with the inherent challenges of the site.
Located in Xi’an’s Qujiang New District, the project sits alongside the South Third Ring Highway. To the north, a municipal greenbelt with an elevation difference of approximately 10 meters creates a significant physical barrier. Reaching the art center requires crossing both a vehicular overpass and a pedestrian bridge, creating challenges in terms of both visual identity and pedestrian accessibility.
Once inside the site, the drop-off area, parking, water courtyard, art gallery, and gardens were also relatively disconnected from one another.
Rather than simply adding more landscape features, the design therefore reconsidered the relationships between people and the city, people and architecture, and people and nature: How could an art center surrounded by urban infrastructure and dramatic level changes reconnect with the city? And how could the entire journey, from arrival to departure, become one continuous experience?
From the Urban Edge to the Art Center
The first challenge was an entrance that was difficult to perceive from the city.
The South Third Ring Highway and the approximately 10-meter elevation difference formed a natural barrier. Even when approaching the site, visitors had limited views toward the art center, while a clear and intuitive pedestrian route was difficult to establish.
The design therefore extended beyond the project boundary and began with the urban interface itself.
A series of sculptural art railings unfolds along the greenbelt of the South Third Ring Highway, moving like ribbons carried by the wind and creating a continuous visual identity at the urban scale. Originally serving a purely functional safety role, the railings were transformed into the first visual “clue” connecting the city to the art center.
Following this line, the design reconnects key points within the site with the existing dead-end pedestrian bridge, while introducing an open municipal park.
The previously fragmented urban spaces are thus reconnected through pedestrian routes. At the same time, the developer’s investment in the surrounding environment is transformed into a public amenity for the wider community. The art center is no longer simply an enclosed destination, but becomes part of the city’s public life.
Making Arrival the Beginning of the Experience
Once the connection between the city and the site was re-established, the approach to the building also needed to be reconsidered.
The original road had limited pedestrian space on both sides, while the sloping terrain obstructed views toward the building. The design introduced pedestrian paths along both sides of the vehicular approach and lowered the existing slope, allowing the architecture to gradually emerge from the urban landscape.
Roads, steps, terrain, and architecture come together to form a continuously unfolding arrival sequence.
From the art railings along the urban road, through the municipal park and the open entrance approach, and finally into the art center, movement becomes a gradually immersive spatial experience.
Arrival is no longer simply a journey from A to B, but the first chapter of entering the art center.
The four structural columns within the drop-off area were also reconsidered.
Rather than simply concealing them, the design team collaborated with an art consultant to wrap the columns with translucent, sculptural art installations. Viewed from outside, the installations echo the square geometry of the building’s glass box. Yet once visitors pass through them after getting out of their cars, the space unexpectedly transforms into a circular interior.
This contrast between the exterior and interior geometries turns an existing structural constraint into a moment of spatial transition.
Sunlight filters through the translucent surfaces, creating constantly changing patterns of light and shadow. Reflections of trees emerge subtly from the mirror-like pool at the center, establishing a delicate dialogue between plants, water, sky, and architecture.
Reorganizing the Entire Visitor Experience
Once inside the site, the design continues to reconsider the landscape from the perspective of human movement.
Drop-off, parking, visiting, resting, meeting, and departure are no longer treated as separate functions, but are organized as a continuous sequence of experiences.
Parking is given a new landscape role.
Dedicated sports car parking spaces were introduced, while the staff parking area behind is carefully screened by a series of green terraces. The parking function is concealed within the layered garden, transforming what would otherwise be a purely utilitarian back-of-house space into part of the landscape.
Even while parking, visitors remain immersed in the garden.
This approach reflects the broader design philosophy of the project: rather than avoiding practical requirements, design can transform functional necessities into meaningful experiences.
Bringing Water, Light, and Plants into the Art Space
This approach is expressed most fully in the relationship between the water courtyard and the art gallery.
In the original scheme, the two spaces were relatively independent. Although each had its own visual qualities, they lacked a deeper spatial connection.
The design therefore began to intervene from above the gallery.
The original single water surface was reconfigured into three water levels at different heights, creating a series of cascading water curtains. Six skylight boxes bring natural light into the art gallery, while the water flows down through these openings into the space below.
Chinese tallow trees are planted within the skylight boxes.
From the water courtyard, visitors first see the trees emerging through the three layers of water. As they turn into the art gallery, their view moves beneath the water surfaces, revealing a space that was previously hidden.
The same natural elements therefore produce entirely different spatial relationships as visitors move through the project.
Dappled natural light, flowing water curtains, and the gently swaying branches of the trees become the gallery’s primary visual experience.
At the same time, the continuous sound of flowing water filters out the noise of the South Third Ring Highway. Visitors gradually transition from the speed and pressure of the city into a quieter, more relaxed environment.
Here, water is no longer simply a water feature, and plants are no longer merely greenery.
Nature itself becomes one of the art center’s exhibits.
From One Garden to a Series of Gardens
With the core spaces reconnected, the other ground-level areas use terrain and planting to create a variety of spatial atmospheres.
Changes in elevation create different layers of space, while distinct planting communities define gardens with individual characters.
Rather than turning each garden into an isolated “destination,” the design maintains a sense of continuity between different scales and atmospheres.
A sculptural spiral staircase moves through the gardens, connecting the ground-level landscape with the two rooftop gardens.
It functions not only as vertical circulation, but also as a visual focal point within the garden. As visitors move upward and downward, the relationships between planting, architecture, and sky continuously shift, transforming vertical movement itself into part of the landscape experience.
Letting the Seasons Become Part of the Garden
The rooftop garden extends this experience into the natural rhythm of time.
Curving pathways rise and fall through the planting, while semi-private circular seating areas are embedded within the landscape, providing spaces for rest, conversation, and solitude.
In contrast to the refined and elegant planting language of the ground level, the rooftop garden uses a rich mixture of ornamental grasses with varied colors, textures, and heights.
This relatively free planting strategy not only enriches the visual layers of the garden, but also responds to the pronounced seasonal changes of Xi’an’s northern climate.
Plants do not need to remain “perfect” throughout the year.
Spring and summer bring growth and abundance; autumn introduces changes in color and texture; while winter reveals another kind of beauty as foliage gradually fades and dries.
The design embraces these natural changes, allowing the lifecycle of plants to become part of the garden itself.
Viewed from the upper levels of the art center, the winding pathways, circular seating areas, and freely layered planting come together like an ever-changing Impressionist garden.
From Resolving Site Challenges to Creating a Continuous Experience
Looking back at the original site conditions, Qujiang Yin Art Center was not naturally an easy place to perceive or enter.
The viaduct, level changes, circulation, structural constraints, parking, and fragmentation between different functional spaces all presented real challenges for the design.
Rather than attempting to eliminate these conditions, the design reorganized them, turning existing constraints into starting points for spatial experiences.
The urban level difference became a public park and a sequence of entrance steps.
The fragmented urban edge was reconnected through sculptural art railings.
Structural columns were transformed into translucent art installations.
Parking was integrated into a series of green terraces.
The previously independent water courtyard and gallery were reconnected through water, light, and planting.
And the seasonal changes of a northern climate became an ever-changing expression within the rooftop garden.
Ultimately, the landscape moves gradually from the perimeter of the building into its interior, transforming from a series of independent spatial moments into a continuous thread running throughout the entire project.
From the art railings along the urban road to the shifting light within the entrance installation; from the reflections of trees in the water courtyard to the flowing water within the gallery; and finally to the seasonal planting of the rooftop garden—nature is no longer simply something to be observed, but an experience that visitors can walk through, listen to, feel, and engage with.
This is the relationship that Qujiang Yin Art Center seeks to establish:
Rather than designing a landscape around an art center, the landscape itself becomes part of the art center.
