Isabelle Laurent
Tianhe Youth Commune Located in Tianhe District of Guangzhou City, the Shadong village, where sits the buildings of this project, was erected in December 1995. The local economic corporation in the late 90s constructed on the commune’s fringe land a 4-storey warehouse leased to the Guangzhou Book Center for their new book storage.
Eight years ago, the company constructed a new five-story warehouse building on the northern side of the previous one.The status quo of the site is now one new and one old vacant multi-story warehouse building. The compound’s accessibility from the city is poor, but they own the beautiful scenic view of Baiyun Mountain.
In consideration of these two multi-storey warehouses, without long history or any spatial distinctives, the architect experiments a bold spatial operation of transplantation of mountain-scape”, within the 8.5-meter-wide “canyon” between the long sides of the two buildings, to reshape the post-industrial site.
The reconversion creates a new state of combination of urban and rural, and this new “urban-rural integration” will serve as an incubator and living home of the new urban young talents.
7 solid landscape segments transplanted from Baiyun Mountain link the two buildings into a new community with a total gross floor area of 23,000 square meters and accommodating about 800 young people to work and live in the commune.
By the intervention of the floating landscaping bridges, a continuous climbing walkway links and runs through from the entrance of the compound to the roof-top garden and recreation facilities, offering a real experience of outdoor climbing within the new youth commune.
Project Info
Architects: O-office Architects
Country: China, Guangzhou
Area: 21000 m²
Year: 2017
Photographs: Zhi Xia
Tags: 2017ChinaConcreteGuangzhouO-OFFICE ArchitectsSteelStoneTianhe Youth CommuneZhi Xia
Isabelle Laurent
Isabelle Laurent is a Built Projects Editor at Arch2O, recognized for her editorial insight and passion for contemporary architecture. She holds a Master’s in Architectural Theory from École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville. Before joining Arch2O in 2016, she worked in a Paris-based architectural office and taught as a faculty adjunct at the École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris. Isabelle focuses on curating projects around sustainability, adaptive reuse, and urban resilience. With a background in design and communication, she brings clarity to complex ideas and plays a key role in shaping Arch2O’s editorial
