MAD has unveiled its design for the Zhongguancun International Innovation Center, currently under construction in Beijing.

Since 2007, the Zhongguancun Forum has taken "Innovation and Development" as its permanent theme, and invites domestic and foreign scientists, entrepreneurs, and emerging entrepreneurs to exchange and share ideas on different topics every year. After more than ten years of development, the Zhongguancun Forum has become a global, comprehensive, and open high-end international forum for scientific and technological innovation, and a national platform for global high-tech innovation exchanges and cooperation.

The Zhongguancun International Innovation Center, which is under construction, is located in the core area of ​​Zhongguancun, Haidian District, adjacent to Yuquan Mountain, the Summer Palace, the Old Summer Palace, Peking University, Tsinghua University, etc., covering an area of ​​5.9 hectares.

The Three Mountains and Five Gardens are a historical and cultural highland in modern China that combines nature and creation to a very high level, and have been nourishing and influencing Beijing from modern times to the present. The International Innovation Center hopes to establish its finishing touch in planning from multiple dimensions: in terms of technology, it will show the innovative vision carried by the center with an open and imaginative spatial atmosphere; in terms of culture, it will respond to the unique historical and natural background of the site with a humble attitude; in terms of greenness, it will become a new urban public space open to the city and community, where everyone can enjoy it.

The form of the Zhongguancun International Innovation Center slowly stretches from north to south on the land. Looking from the three mountains not far away to the center, the building volume disappears in the city, and the green roof is integrated into the environment of the Three Mountains and Five Gardens with a subtle and humble attitude, becoming its green extension in the city and a rare landscape in the city.

From a close look at the city interface, the buildings next to the city's main traffic arteries rise from the south and slump from the north. The trees and waterscape in the southeast corner of the site temporarily separate the entrance of the venue from the busy city, creating a sense of ceremony for people preparing to enter the center.

The outer edge of the building roof is designed with white blinds in a dense and sparse manner. At night, the blinds are lit up like flowing light strips, which reduces the serious and rigid inherent impression of the conference building itself, and instead creates a harmonious and interesting combination of movement and stillness.

The glass curtain wall of the building has now become the city facade, making the interface between the city and the building wider.

MAD hopes to use a minimalist and pure interior atmosphere to support the vitality and energy stimulated by the exchange of innovative ideas. The large interior space is equipped with two huge skylights that let in natural light, making the overall space open and bright.

While hosting conference functions, the cantilevered roof, outdoor planning and landscape design of Zhongguancun International Innovation Center have created a large number of pleasant grey spaces connected to nature, which people can access and use freely: an original ancient tree on the northeast side was preserved and designed into a sunken stepped courtyard centered on the ancient tree; and the southeast and southwest corners of the site are sunken courtyards connected to the interior of the underground floor of the building.

The Zhongguancun International Innovation Center is currently under construction.

Permanent Venue of Zhongguancun Forum
Beijing, China
2020 – 2023

Type: Conference Center
Site Area: 59,099 m2
Building Area: 64,998 m2 (Above Ground: 20,000 m2, Underground: 44,998 m2)

Partners in Charge: Ma Yansong, Dang Qun, Yosuke Hayano
Partner in Charge: Fu Changrui
Design Team (Implementation Plan): Zhou Rui, Zhuang Fan, Hu Jinchang, Liu Yiqing, Xue Yawen, Edgar Navarrete, Cheng Xiangju, Pan Anyi
Design Team (Competition): Li Jian, Wang Shuobin, Wu Qiaoling, Yang Xuebing, Alan Rodriguez Carrillo, Xiao Yuhan, Zhang Tong, Li Cunhao, Rozita Kashirtseva

Owner: Zhongjie (Beijing) Development and Construction Co., Ltd.
Engineering design general contractor: Beijing Institute of Architectural Design Co., Ltd.
Curtain wall consultant: Inhabit Engineering Consulting (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
Interior consultant: Beijing Jianyuan Decoration Engineering Design Co., Ltd.
Landscape consultant: Guangzhou Shanshui Bid Design Co., Ltd.