Text description provided by the architects. Located in Tianhe District of Guangzhou City, the Shadong village, where sits the buildings of this project, was erected in December 1995. The local economic corporation in the late 90s constructed on the commune’s fringe land a 4-storey warehouse leased to the Guangzhou Book Center for their new book storage.

Floating landscaping bridges. Image

Eight years ago, the company constructed a new five-story warehouse building on the northern side of the previous one.The status quo of the site is now one new and one old vacant multi-story warehouse building. The compound’s accessibility from the city is poor, but they own the beautiful scenic view of Baiyun Mountain.

Implanted in bridges system running through from the entrance to the roof

In consideration of these two multi-storey warehouses, without long history or any spatial distinctives, the architect experiments a bold spatial operation of transplantation of mountain-scape”, within the 8.5-meter-wide “canyon” between the long sides of the two buildings, to reshape the post-industrial site.

Floating landscaping bridges. Image

Landscaping bridges as outdoor terraces and viewing decks. Image

The reconversion creates a new state of combination of urban and rural, and this new “urban-rural integration” will serve as an incubator and living home of the new urban young talents.

Outdoor staircase and floating bridge. Image

7 solid landscape segments transplanted from Baiyun Mountain link the two buildings into a new community with a total gross floor area of 23,000 square meters and accommodating about 800 young people to work and live in the commune.

Continuous climbing walkway links and runs to the roof-top garden. Image

By the intervention of the floating landscaping bridges, a continuous climbing walkway links and runs through from the entrance of the compound to the roof-top garden and recreation facilities, offering a real experience of outdoor climbing within the new youth commune. 

Continuous climbing walkway links and runs to the roof-top garden. Image © Zhi Xia

• Architects

  O-office Architects

• Location

  51-52 Ganyuan Rd., Tianhe District, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

• Category

  Renovation

• Principal Architects

  Jianxiang He, Ying Jiang

• Project Architect

  Jingyu Dong

• Design Team

  Chengqiang Huang, Xiaolin Chen, Yue Wang, Wanyi Zhang, Weisen Peng, Tao Zhang, Licong Lin, Zhen Fan, Mincong Deng

• Client

  Vanke Guangzhou

• Structural Consultant

  Qiyao Luo

• VI Design

  another design

• Area

  21000.0 m2

• Project Year

  2017

• Photographs

  Chaos. Z, Zhi Xia