From China to Italy, these three projects push the boundaries of design while simultaneously promoting connectivity.

Shenzhen Bay Culture Park

Conceived by Beijing-based architecture studio MAD, the largely subterranean Shenzhen Bay Culture Park will total nearly two million square feet of oceanfront in the Houhai section of the Chinese city’s Nanshan district when it debuts in 2023. Situated next to a soaring skyscraper by Kohn Pedersen Fox, the site will be anchored by the Creative Design Hall and Shenzhen Science and Technology Museum, which both frame the central auditorium and are accentuated by a sprawling green plaza. Sloping green roofs will naturally descend toward street-level spaces like recessed courtyards, while the stone roof of the south pavilion will be topped with a public viewing platform, allowing visitors to take in Shenzhen Bay and the city’s skyline.

Jiunvfeng Study
Shandong, China

Adjacent to the Shenlong Grand Canyon and surrounded by mountains, the Jiunvfeng Study in Shandong, China’s Dongximen Village calls to mind the floating and transparent nature of a cloud. The 3,093-square-foot visitors center fuses with the landscape thanks to a glass body, as well as a “light steel and membrane structural system that allows the design to outline and stretch across the top of the mountain with natural curves in accordance with the terrain,” says Meng Fanhao, cofounder and chief architect of the Hangzhou-based Gad Line+ Studio. “A wall made of local rubble is integrated into the mountain that rises step by step, inheriting the quaint temperament of the [nearby] residential houses.”

Church and Community Center
Castel di Lama, Italy

After architect Marco Contini’s Parma, Italy-based firm Studio Contini Architettura won a competition to design a church, parish hall, sports clubhouse, and changing rooms around a public square in the village of Castel di Lama in 2006, the team studied “the themes related to the building for worship,” Contini says. “The key concept of the project was to create an articulated urban place in which a community could come together to share a spiritual experience.” Clad in concrete and treated with plaster, laminated wood covers the church’s roof, with a suspended elliptical form acting as a focal point. The exterior is characterized by a screen made from travertine slabs that filters in light and offers a glimpse of what’s inside. “The interior is always visible to reflect the idea of an open church,” adds Contini.

Photography and renderings by Proloog, Jin Xiaowen, zystudio, and Ignacio Maria Coccia

This article originally appeared in HD’s  August 2020 issue.