Eye of Time

A mixed-use corporate building in Chengdu, China creatively unifies work, leisure, and living 

Zhixin Hybrid Office Park is part of a large new campus development comprising about twenty new buildings situated on the outskirts of Chengdu in Sichuan Province. With an innovative mixture of private residences, office space, and leisure facilities, the context allows a new startup company or a local headquarters to have a corporate identity proximal to humanizing spaces in what is otherwise a generic context.

The specificity of PATTERNS’ building is notable in its strong sensation of levitation. Organized by a diagonal wedge of circulation that dynamically cuts the plan and connects front and back, the mass is subtracted from its corners, generating similarly opposed structural cantilevers. Visually and physically linking the entry street to the golf course are waffle hyperbolic paraboloids, which connect vertical walls and horizontal slabs to further induce the building’s sense of obliqueness. The repetition and inversion of the same hyperbolic geometry at opposing ends produces a spatial reciprocity. Experientially, this geometry creates a sense of déjà vu in its subtle but substantial subversion of the generic mass.

A standard panelized aluminum envelope is used to clad all flat surfaces of the building. Meanwhile, the inset eye-like windows cavities and the coffered torque surfaces underneath the overhangs are constructed in GFRC. In both cases, their finish is matte plastic with cement coloration. While aluminum planes are panelized, GFRC surfaces are seamless. The interstitial placement of GFRC surfaces and their proximity to the aluminum attenuate their contrast, therefore challenging the tectonic readings of the building not only in terms of how it is materially composed, but also in relation to the faceted smooth surfaces of the design, which fools the eye into a miscomprehension of the building’s gravity.