Andrea D’Antrassi is a registered architect in Italy and Switzerland, and received his Master’s Degree in Architecture from Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, Switzerland. He joined MAD in 2010. Andrea is responsible for managing MAD's practice in Europe and the Middle East, as well as overseeing the overall operations of the Rome office. With solid experiences gained from overseas projects in US, Italy, Australia and China, he adds a valuable global vision to MAD. Andrea has been involved with Roma 71 Via Boncompagni, Huangshan Mountain Village, Nanjing Zendai Himalayas Center, and FENIX Museum of Migration in Rotterdam.

Rome Office

Gardenhouse is a mixed-use development that reimagines urban living by merging architecture with nature. The project consists of 18 residential units above ground-floor commercial space, forming a “hillside village” that emerges from one of the largest living green walls in the U.S.

The facade is planted with native, drought-tolerant species that reduce irrigation needs and create a textured, organic presence on Wilshire Boulevard. Above, a cluster of white, pitched-roof volumes with irregular windows evoke the hills of Los Angeles while providing varied housing typologies studios, condominiums, townhouses, and villas.

Each unit has its own entrance and private outdoor space, enhancing individuality and community. A central second-floor courtyard acts as a shared “secret garden,” designed for privacy and interaction.

The ground-floor entry along Stanley Drive is envisioned as a carved “cave” leading residents on a sensory journey of light, shadow, and water before opening up to a landscaped patio.

Gardenhouse challenges the standard apartment block, proposing a nature-infused alternative that prioritizes harmony between people, architecture, and the environment.



Los Angeles, USA

Residential

Gardenhouse

Baiziwan Social Housing is an affordable housing project in Beijing. Located near the CBD, the project provides 4,000 rental units across 12 buildings and is designed to support diverse groups, including young professionals, seniors, and welfare-dependent residents. As a response to China’s growing urban housing challenges, Baiziwan rethinks public housing through a human-centered, sustainable approach.

Breaking away from the closed superblock model common in Chinese urban planning, we divided the site into six smaller blocks organized along a central public avenue. This creates an open, walkable neighborhood, with shops, cafes, kindergartens, and elderly care services at the street level to foster urban vitality.

Above the ground floor, a resident-only “floating garden” spans the second level, offering interconnected roof parks with gyms, playgrounds, and gardens creating a multi-layered public realm that integrates nature and community life. Across the site, stepped Y-shaped building forms enhance daylight access for all units, while north-facing corridors reduce thermal loss.

Over 80% of construction is prefabricated to reduce waste and improve build quality. Two buildings meet passive house standards, cutting energy use by 90%. With 47% green coverage, flexible unit layouts, and sustainable infrastructure, Baiziwan sets a new benchmark for social housing in China.

The project reflects our long-term research into social housing, advocating for a new model that centers on people, nature, and social integration.



Beijing, China

Baiziwan Social Housing

Universe is an immersive installation by Ma Yansong, created for the Shenzhen and Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture. Installed inside a former silo, the work uses light, reflection, and sound to explore the relationship between space, perception, and cosmology.

Inspired by an ancient philosophy, the concept draws from the idea of a formless “void” or Hundun a space of silence and motion from which all things originate. Unlike Western interpretations of the cosmos, this view sees the universe as a reflection of inner consciousness. The installation builds on this idea, framing the vastness of the cosmos as something deeply personal and introspective.

Inside the silo, suspended spherical lights shift unpredictably, mimicking stars and nebulae. Red mirrored panels reflect the moving lights, creating a sense of infinite extension and spatial uncertainty. A specially composed ambient soundtrack adds another layer, guiding visitors through a contemplative experience that merges the external environment with inner thought.

Universe invited visitors to step away from daily distractions and engage with the unknown. It offers a brief moment of reflection within the city, where curiosity and imagination become central to experiencing space.

The installation was recognized with the Best Artwork award by both the Public Vote and the Academic Committee at the Biennale.

Shenzhen, China

Exhibition

Yang Xuebing, Yoshio Fukumori, Niu Shaobo, Zhou Chenhao

DADI-FAÇADE

Ning Field Lighting Design

Mark Ma 

UABB Hu Kangyu

Universe

UNIC is located in Clichy-Batignolles, a mixed-use eco-district in Paris’ 17th arrondissement, the project integrates nature, light, and community into a high-density urban context.

Facing Martin Luther King Park, UNIC features expansive balconies that extend green space vertically, giving each unit semi-private outdoor areas and unobstructed views including the Eiffel Tower on upper levels. Its sinuous, tapering form contrasts with the city’s traditional Haussmann-style buildings and introduces a new residential typology centered on openness, light, and nature.

The building connects directly to metro infrastructure and with an adjacent public housing project, creating a diverse socio-economic community. At its base, public amenities such as retail, kindergartens, and restaurants strengthen neighborhood ties.

UNIC was the product of years of collaboration with city officials, planners, and residents. Through a participatory process, We helped shape a vision of future Parisian living one that prioritizes social inclusion, sustainable growth, and a redefined relationship between people and nature.


Paris, France

UNIC

FENDI partnered with MAD for its Men’s Fall/Winter 2024–25 collection, continuing the House’s commitment to cross-disciplinary design. Initiated by Silvia Venturini Fendi, the collaboration brings architectural vision into fashion through a special edition of the Peekaboo ISeeU bag and a new FENDI MAD sneaker, both unveiled at the runway show on January 13, 2024, in Milan.

Under the creative direction of Venturini Fendi and Ma Yansong, the Peekaboo ISeeU bag is reimagined with sculptural aluminum components that reflect MAD’s curvilinear design language. The bag’s leather body is interrupted by wave-like aluminum forms, creating a ripple effect that introduces movement to the rigid structure. It is offered in two exclusive versions: black-on-black with blue metal insertions, and dove grey with gloss yellow accents.

The FENDI MAD sneaker echoes this architectural approach. Featuring an injection-molded sole and upper, the design includes two-tone bubble textures, metallic gradients, and a low, aerodynamic profile. Hidden stretch laces and a transparent bubble detail housing the FENDI logo emphasize the shoe’s seamless construction. The sneaker is available in three colorways that match the bags.

The collaboration blends fashion and architecture, translating MAD’s fluid forms into wearable objects that explore the intersection of material, structure, and movement.

Milan, Italy

Product

MAD x Fendi

The Conrad Hotel in Beijing introduces an alternative approach to high-rise architecture in the city’s dense central business district. Located at a major intersection along East 3rd Ring Road, the hotel challenges the rigidity of the surrounding urban fabric with a form that moves fluidly through the skyline.

The facade features a continuous, sculpted surface that responds to the internal grid and shifts in rhythm as it rises. The curving geometry brings a sense of softness and organic motion to an area defined by efficiency and repetition. Positioned next to Tuanjiehu Park, one of the few green spaces in the district, the building functions as a transition between the natural landscape and the city’s built environment.

Our design envisions the structure as a form of “living architecture,” emerging from the rigid context like a plant growing through pavement. The design introduces movement, variation, and a sense of life into an otherwise uniform setting.

Inside, guest rooms feature curved walls and irregular window openings that shape the interiors into light-filled, protective spaces. These sculpted environments offer views of the city framed by softened geometry, creating a distinct spatial experience that contrasts with the exterior surroundings.


Hospitality

Conrad Hotel

MAD’s scheme is part of a larger tourism masterplan for Huangshan Taiping Lake. While providing the conveniences of modern living, the design affirms the significance of this culturally important mountain range. Composed in deference to the local topography, each of the buildings are diverse in height and appearance, and have been conceived to ensure that the original mountain levels are maintained. Organized in a linked configuration across the southern slope of Taiping Lake, the dynamic relationship that is created among the ten buildings establishes a new type of village landscape: one where architecture becomes nature, and nature dissolves into architecture.

The apartments that comprise “Huangshan Mountain Village” have all been envisioned as quiet retreats. Each one boasts an expansive balcony whose organic lines respond to the topographic contours of the immediate mountainous terrain. With their shape informed by the tea fields nearby, they appear as if they have been sculpted by wind and water, with no two the same. Extending the interior to the exterior, they provide plenty of outdoor space, giving residents the feeling that they are not just observers of the scenery that surrounds them, but actually immersed within it ─ creating a dialogue with the mountains, lake, and sky. Pathways have been determined by the landscape, so that they naturally meander through the trees and between the architecture, offering unique access to the treasured site.

In its completion, “Huangshan Mountain Village” is a true expression of Ma Yansong’s “Shanshui City” philosophy. The intention has not been to create architecture that references forms of nature, such as mountains and water, but instead to establish a space where people can reconnect with nature on a spiritual level ─ to create architecture that evokes emotion and that embodies humanity’s pursuit of inner fulfillment.

Huangshan, China

Philippe Brysse, Tiffany Masako Dahlen, Luke Lu, WANG Deyuan, Jakob Beer, ZHAO Wei, LI Guangchong, Kayla Lee, Geraldine Lo, Alejandra Obregon, Zeng Lingdong, Achille Tortini, Matthew Rosen, Gustavo Maya, ZHENG Fang, Sarita Tejasmit, Augustus Chan, Jeong-Eun Lee

Greenland Hong Kong Holdings Limited

HSarchitects

Suzhou Gold Mantis Construction Decoration

Broadacre Source Landscape

Xi'an Aircraft Industrial Decoration Engineering Co., Ltd

Shanghai Mofo Lighting

Huangshan Mountain Village

MAD has completed Roca’s Beijing Gallery in Dongzhimen, near the Beijing East Second Ring Road. The project consists of an unobstructed gallery space that opens up to its urban environment; behind double-height glazing, the interior walls of both of the gallery’s floors, finished with a screen of LEDs, become a new façade for the city.

The multimedia surface is intended to provide spectators accessible, vibrant glimpses into projected realities that challenge their senses and their rectilinear environments -- creating an atmosphere that is a fluid mixture of light, movement, and people. The content of the screens, such as simulated depictions of people using the showrooms, seemingly unaware of their visitors or any observation, playfully connects the Roca Beijing Gallery’s internal spaces. An intentional ambiguity of “interior” and “exterior” is perceptible for those passing the gallery, resulting from the movement of nearby pedestrians and the silhouettes of those inside, a movement further distorted by the LED screens.

The gallery also projects images of nature, simulating different weather conditions and seasons--such as the falling of rain, or the emulation of sunshine to address a smoggy day. Designed by art critic and curator Jérôme Sans, the installation changes with the passing of seconds, minutes, and days.

Public

Yukan Yanagawa, Hiroki Fujino, Yin Ming, Li Yuanhao, and Sear Nee

Sino-tech (Beijing) Decoration & Engineering Co,.Ltd

K.W.design

Roca Beijing Gallery

The overall site has a footprint of 177.6-hectare, and a total building area of nearly 270,000 square meters. The terminal building was designed to add a human-scaled space with a calming presence to the Airport, both from a distance and from within. As visitors approach from the high-speed rail “Longjia” Station or the parking structure, they will be greeted by the terminal’s unique fan-shaped profile that resembles a floating feather — a nod to the airplanes that will be ascending and descending from its terminals throughout the day.

By adopting a three-fingered corridor structure surrounded by arcs, the terminal will maintain an overall harmonious layout in its connections to the T1 and T2 terminal areas while increasing the number of passenger seats near the aircrafts. Upon entrance, passengers will encounter a large, uninterrupted ground floor that provides direct access to the subway, automobile road and other methods of transportation connecting the terminal to the larger site.

The terminal also reflects the charm of Changchun as a "Garden City'' through the creation of what the design team has referred to as a "garden airport." The exterior space area is characterized by forests, lakes, meadows, and undulating terrain, while the indoor garden system combines trees, ground covers, and water features to create a "cold zone garden" that reflects the local climate.

Natural light is brought into the departure hall through the feather-shaped roof to create a bright and warm interior space that provides much-needed sunlight to the garden spaces within. The structural system continues the rhythm of the building's skin to express the logic of force transmission, which converges toward the center together with the skylight, guiding the direction of passengers naturally. The unique wooden ceiling also combines with the structure, skylight and sunlight to create a dynamic interior space.

The terminal’s approach to green design at an intimate scale is a response to the timeless human need for connection to human and plant-life alike; all within a shape as light and airy as a feather floating in the breeze.


Changchun, China

Infrastructure

Changchun Airport T3

Yiwu, well recognized in international trade, is a representative of Jiangnan culture. Located on the south bank of the Dongyang River, Yiwu Grand Theater elegantly floats on the water’s surface in a romantic atmosphere. It is defined by a layering of semi-transparent glass canopies that resembles the texture of silk. The subtle curves echo the Jiangnan-style eaves of local traditional architectures. The semi-transparent glass curtain wall not only acts as a shading system, but also optimizes the use of natural light within the interior.

Yiwu Grand Theater emphasizes public engagement: it allows pedestrians to meander along the north side of the water. An amphitheater and large open plaza extend into the water, while landscaped terraces offer an immersive natural experience within the urban context. Between the grand theater and the conference center lies a “valley” of trees. The rich landscaping weaves itself between the varying heights of the two buildings, providing another public space for visitors to explore.

Andrea D'antrassi