Areas
Combinatory Campus: Songshan Lake Science and Technology Center
Infrastructural Lineaments
The Songshan Lake Science and Technology Center is a new island campus located in China’s densely populated Pearl River Delta. The project positions itself as distinctively different from the existing urban fabric of Dongguan. Rather than being a campus of discrete structures, the composition of buildings is unified through a formal language which seeks to evoke a notion of thrust and fluidity. From a performative standpoint, these aspirations treat the campus as not merely a terminus but rather a hub which leverages infrastructure to interface with the broader city. Conceptually speaking, this formal language also alludes to the region’s geology, as the project’s “force lines” suggest an alluvial fluidity found in the Delta.
The campus itself consists of four main programs: a concert hall, a convention center, a hotel, and an exhibition hall. Each program is informed by a layering of undulating surfaces, which act as both an overarching roof and an interstitial datum from which volumetric rooms emerge. A main bridge reaches out to the nearby highway and bike paths, becoming an isthmus that spills into the campus center. This connection point is both a bridge and a tunnel, providing pedestrian paths above ground and vehicular / service access below grade. As the program’s most private element, the hotel is situated along the island’s north side, having choice views of the lake. South of this, the convention center, exhibition hall, and concert hall are linked as a sequence of public-oriented spaces.