Beijing

TAO Residence locates in Lincoln Park real estate, Beijing. The owner hopes this life space contains comfort and controllability, fill with the exploration of freedom and interaction. “Creation is the precision of art and the passion of science” ——Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov HONGDesignworks combines elements of mechanical technology and the fashion of art to customize this private space. The characteristics and habits of the owner would construct this space and provide life energy infinitely.  The space reveals a brief composition with mechanical aesthetics. Classic color matching——black, white, and gray cooperate with leather, metal, and specular texture. Tan, Xiao / Ten Photography Studio... More

Shoukai Vanke Centre is a 132,000 sqm mixed-use development which is composed of a 26,000 sqm shopping mall, a 124-metre-tall office tower as well as a hotel. Beijing’s Daxing area has been envisioned as a new gateway to the city. Located in the heart of Daxing district, the project operates as a key piece and the largest building complex within the regional development so far. The office tower has a triangular shape which creates a strong presence at the main intersection yet appears elegant and slim from other points. The triangular shape is the result of a series of pragmatic decisions which include maximising views towards the newly built park and integrating double height sky-garden balconies into the tips of the floor plates.... More

Zhuzong Vanke Plaza is a 127,000 sqm development located in Beijing’s rapidly growing southern suburbs. Comprised of live/work towers, a retail podium and leisure amenities, its interlocking volumes add interest to its form and variety to the experiences it offers. With activities that need large volumes close to the ground, a key move was to create additional ‘ground planes’. The ‘lower plane’, on levels four and five, comprises a series of restaurants laid out on an orthogonal grid. The upper ‘ground plane’ is conceived as a group of pavilions for small offices and larger towers of live/work units laid out within a garden accessible to the public as well as occupants. A clearly articulated escal... More

The design approach for this project is to thread educational and retail programs into a positive feedback loop, combining both public and private educational platforms which are beneficial for visitors and the community. The main building to the east of the site and the small-scale volumes to the north encircle the central sunken plaza, which is accessible from two exterior stairways at ground level. A large area of glazed façade compliments the neat form of the buildings while allowing for a bright interior with natural light. The small-scale volumes, highlighted by their geometric shapes, enliven a casual atmosphere while contrasting with the larger mass of the main building. The sunken plaza is conceived as a retail-educational... More

Public spaces are the platform to foster social interaction within communities. Through the design of Jianzi Box, CLOU showcased one of the most exciting and rich qualities of Beijing’s public space: its spontaneity and vitality. The ‘Jianzi’ - a traditional Asian game played since the Han Dynasty - creates a dynamic atmosphere and transforms leftover spaces into playgrounds. CLOU’s Jianzi Box displays such a transformation of public space CLOU used an item which is part of every day’s public activity in Beijing: The ‘Jianzi’. CLOU designed a temporary pavilion composed of 15,000 Jianzi units which had landed on an empty site in the Baitasi area of Beijing. The Jianzi Box created a connection of t... More

This four-storey building designed by CLOU showcases a unique composition of office and retail spaces. The sales gallery can be conceived as a playfully arranged showcase pavilion topped by a pragmatically organised office box. The combination of these two volumes, together with the large-scale cantilevers creates a spatial complexity of the interior and exterior. The design aspires to blur the boundaries between the indoor and outdoor spaces, the retail and recreation zones, while the spatial transition in between aims to encourage one’s voluntary discovery and generate a dynamic experience. More

The office occupies 500 sqm on the second floor of a three story office building from the late 1980’s. We decided to keep the present configuration of the space uninterrupted while inserting our office program. An annex glass box had been added to second floor of the existing building allowing for the exterior brick facade to be experienced as an interior space. The space is loosely zoned into a main work area, kitchen and gathering space, a large meeting room area, a model making room and smaller meeting room. Alongside the main work space a continuous wall of metal cladded swivel doors allow for a playful and flexible configuration of ‘open and close’. When closed, the metal panels catch subtle reflections of the surrou... More

Beijing wedding planners Jiuxi reimagines its services with 21st century relevance in an exhibition designed by CLOU. The fourth floor of the space mimics a sleek, highly organised jewellery box but with a digital layer – polished terrazzo flooring paired with black anodised steel cladding speak to Jiuxi’s meticulous eye for detail, while large dividing mirrors and pivoting monitor walls enhance the projection of the wedding. Alongside the makeup tables, wedding gowns and jewellery on display, there is an interactive honeymoon exhibition as well as a central rotunda with 360 degree LED projection screens and VR headsets. This room gives customers a virtual experience of their tailored wedding package, including dream honeymoon... More

CIFI Gongchen is a 30,000 sqm, eight-storey shopping mall located in the Fangshan District of Beijing. At the beginning of CLOU’s interior design process for this project, its small volume, relatively large number of storeys and distance from central Beijing were pinpointed as design challenges. How to ensure footfall into the upper and less accessible areas of this mall became the problem CLOU would solve by an innovative design solution. CLOU has planned three key spaces at the ends of the box-shaped mall, creating three uniquely themed atriums at the third, fourth, and sixth floor. Anchor shops such as a gym, children’s education centres and a cinema occupy opposite ends of the mall, complementing the three atriums. The enti... More

CLOU has designed the interiors for the 42,000 sqm, 6-story shopping mall. Located at the western end of Beijing’s iconic Chan’an Avenue, this community mall will provide a new focal point for the Mentougou District. A key design intention focuses on providing a creative social space on the mall’s top floor enticing visitors to visit, capture and share the design on social media. The vaulted double-height spaces were inspired both by Beijing’s imperial archways and the light-flooded renovated factory spaces in Beijing’s Art District which now operate as galleries. Featured details include mirrored inlays and over-sized light bulbs creating interest on the curved surface of the seamless GRG panels. More

The original brief for Jewellery Box Chaowai was to design a high-end boutique, however, given the scale of the project, CLOU felt that a department store look and feel might be more appropriate. To create a sense of unity throughout the design, counters were fitted with anodised, corrugated steel and customised in a range of tones and natural stone selections to create a different atmosphere on each floor. Each level hosts different precious stones and as such the lighting and materials have been selected to show the jewellery in an optimal way. Diamonds on the ground floor require cold lighting, which is balanced by gold column cladding and signage boxes, while on the second floor, jade jewellery, which requires warmer light, is offset b... More

Jing Mian Xin Cheng on Beijing’s Fourth Ring Road mediates between the scale of the large urban development, busy road arteries and pedestrian foot traffic. CLOU engaged in designing a new landscape as well as two office towers linked by a retail podium in between. The landscape reacts to a more intimate and friendly human scale while the distinctive façade design signals its presence at a distance and to those passing by. The appearance of both the landscape and the facade shifts as observers move around the development - large pleats on the retail podium cast dynamic shadows, while the towers’ curtain walls undulate creating reflections and shadows. These projections also allow for small and easy-to-operate openings f... More

MaoHaus is an experimental façade piece exploring historical context, material potentials, novel fabrication and performative qualities within architecture. Taking the simple frame and edge condition of the existing structure, the façade enters the space of the hutong as a flowing fabric. This fluidity is expressed through the conventionally rigid material of concrete questioning inherent perceptions of materiality through formal expression. Beyond the undulating form, the perforations of the surface serve to filter light, during the day, rays of sunlight enter the vestibule, and at night the precisely tuned apertures reveal a triptych of Chairman Mao’s prototypical portrait. The expression of Chairman Mao within the fa&... More

One's way of life is based on his understanding of culture. In other words, 'home' has long been separated from the simple definition of just a house. It is both a deep feeling that lies in the blood and a spiritual destination of body and mind. The project is a private residence of Beijing Dahu villa. The owner is an entrepreneur who has passion with life. The house bordered by a lake on both sides has a very good view. The owner who has his own unique and profound views on life aesthetics enjoys gardening in his spare time. Therefore sunlight, air, water and plants are the four design elements which perfectly meet the owner’s needs of having an exquisite landscape indoors. There are floor-to-ceiling glass windows, unbounded garden... More