Location: Shenzhen, CN

The 2D grid of the Futian Center District of Shenzhen has been made complex using an element of Chinese cultural context. The oriental pattern found in Chinese culture contains a latent and rich set of transparencies and directionalities. The idea of the pattern served as a vessel to organise the MOCAPE as a place of exploration and discovery.

The diverse characters of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Planning Exhibition have been taken up as chance to allow them to form each other. The MOCA is the contained, controlled space of conservation which fades out the city. A mass space where one can concentrate on the Art. PE is the void space that brings the city into the museum.

The two museums have been distributed throughout the building. In this way a visitor experiences the whole building even when visiting only one museum, MOCA or PE. The main circulation escalators always jump a floor making the two museums one building. Visitors of different museums have eye contact on the escalators and are allowed to peek into one another’s museum while changing floors.

The circulation lay out of the plan has been organised by the parameter time. The plan is divided in graspable sections. Between them sit light wells that act as orientation between the galleries and the vertical circulation areas. The visitor can after each section decide to continue, or enter the central part and move to another floor. In this way the museum serves both the accidental tourist with time on his hands, as well as a local on a break.

The pattern structures the facade. In tandem with the light wells it transmits a variety of light conditions throughout the building. The MOCA galleries receive daylight only partly and always filtered. More direct light is allowed to the PE floors. The translucent and opaque sides of the light wells are determined on MOCA levels where they open towards connections between galleries. The sides flip on PE levels. To guide light deeper into the wells the opaque sides are clad with mirrors. On the top floor especially dramatic light conditions occur under the large patterned roof. Here the workshop and research areas receive filtered light from above from milk-glazed glass-parts that can be opened.