© Dirk Weiblen
- Architects: AIM Architecture
- Location: Huiyang, Huizhou, Guangdong, China
- Lead Architect: Wendy Saunders, Vincent de Graaf
- Design Team: Arpad Bercek, Davide Signorato, Jovana Petrovic, Jiao Yan, Leslie Chen, Michael Hankiewicz, Peichin Lee
- Project Architect: Nicolas Herrgott
- Project Management: Cindy Xu
- Client: China Resources Group
- Area: 700.0 m2
- Project Year: 2018
- Photographs: Dirk Weiblen
© Dirk Weiblen
Text description provided by the architects. One of the biggest challenges for industries is keeping up with the pace of growth and innovation. China Resources Group is one of the largest Chinese conglomerates with a wide spread reach and a diversity of industries.
© Dirk Weiblen
Alongside Deloitte Greenhouse, they aim to provide specific training and perspectives to provoke new ways of thinking and sharing new information. We were challenged to organize this admittedly big vision…. in a limited space. Their new innovation lab is a bold blend of ideas and technologies.
© Dirk Weiblen
Flow and flexibility were an imperative. The design needs to move with the people and concepts working inside it. Creating spatial generosity and flexibility – different kinds of partitions enable diverse group trainings and small workshop situations.
Plan
In search of a solution that reflects and inspires the mindset of future users, we inserted a volume that organizes the space with skin that folds, slides and extends outwards.
© Dirk Weiblen
It functions in part to help organize the surrounding space, and facilitate programs for innovative ideas. In a closed state, the volume is almost unassuming – a fluid, continuous space wraps around it. The materials are deliberately chosen to reflect the digitized layering of future content and programming.
© Dirk Weiblen
Aluminum sides open up to a futuristic interior data hub, the technology core of the project and energy center, a place where visitors can recharge. The space is a visual reminder of the creativity and innovation that follows an open mind and forward thinkers.
© Dirk Weiblen
Large touch screens and movable white boards on the surrounding walls augment creative workspaces. A range of furniture styles with flexible intention – workshop, data sharing or casual hangouts – are organized in colored areas keeps visitors in the flow of the space and its ideas.
© Dirk Weiblen
© Dirk Weiblen
CR Lab is a place for the advancement and exploration of ideas, big and small. Intimate moments can be created through surrounding curtains that act as space minimizers or dividers.
© Dirk Weiblen
The soft fabric act as a contrast amid the hard aluminium and screened sides. The lighting is set in linear acoustic ceiling, that married with the acoustic floor and perfect sealable doors, ensures moments of reflection and quiet. Engagement between visitor and space is encouraged straightaway via a playful interactive screen that houses a training program. A big and bold dotted wall that demands the attention of the campus visitors, inviting each guest to be a part of the experience, and the future it envisions.
© Dirk Weiblen