Flora Lee, graduated from School of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, joined MAD in 2008. She is an exceptional project manager with a multifaceted management capability that ranges from conceptual design to project coordination and communication with clients and developers. She has helped develop and realize a number of MAD’s major international projects, including: Gardenhouse, Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, Campinas Art Gallery of Brazil, East 34th in NYC, Paris UNIC and the Conrad Hotel in Beijing.

Los Angeles Office

Flora Lee, graduated from School of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, joined MAD in 2008. She is an exceptional project manager with a multifaceted management capability that ranges from conceptual design to project coordination and communication with clients and developers. She has helped develop and realize a number of MAD’s major international projects, including: Gardenhouse, Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, Campinas Art Gallery of Brazil, East 34th in NYC, Paris UNIC   and the Conrad Hotel in Beijing. 

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

Residential

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’s design for the Urbanism\Architecture Shenzhen & Hongkong Bi-city Biennale, the Monster’s Footprint debuted in the Citizen Square of Shenzhen. It is a sunken space shade of a giant footprint, paved by pink EPDM material, functioning as the playground for the citizens in the city center.

Shenzhen is a village turned city overnight. Enchanted by the bursting power of economic development, the city center is filled with extensive, and yet indistinctive icons. The coarse scale and preposterous symbolism of these icons have detached themselves from people’s daily experience. The Monster’s Footprint attempts to enter this very surreal reality, and offer a possibility for city dwellers to find their own freedom and joy in the Citizen Square.

Shenzhen, China

Installation 

Monster’s Footprint in the Citizen Square

Our proposal for the Bezos Learning Center reimagines a new cultural and educational space on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., adjacent to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution and supported by a major gift from Jeff Bezos, the project is envisioned as a hub for learning, creativity, and public engagement around science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM).

The design creates a space that invites curiosity, exploration, and connection. With flexible classrooms, interactive exhibitions, and open public areas, the center is designed to support hands-on learning experiences while connecting visitors of all ages to ideas that shape the future.

Our approach reflects a deep connection to the surrounding landscape and the spirit of innovation rooted in the history of the site. The architecture aims to bridge past and future, creating a relationship between the legacy of the National Air and Space Museum and a new vision for how institutions can engage with education and public space.

Washington, USA

Culture

Bezos Learning Center

FENIX Museum of Migration transforms Rotterdam’s historic Fenix warehouse into a cultural landmark that explores the universal story of human migration. Located on the Katendrecht Peninsula, the 1923 warehouse was once the largest transshipment hub in the world, serving as a departure point for millions of migrants.

The design preserves the building’s industrial character, retaining its original concrete structure and green steel windows while introducing contemporary interventions. A glass curtain wall replaces sections of the facade and roof, creating an open, light-filled interior.

At the heart of the transformation is the Tornado a double-helix staircase that rises from the ground floor and extends onto a rooftop observation deck. This sculptural element breaks down the scale of the warehouse into human-centered spaces while offering panoramic views of Rotterdam and the River Maas. Its flowing form, crafted from stainless steel and wood, symbolizes movement and transition, echoing the journeys taken by generations of migrants.

Inside, the space spans two floors, housing a growing collection of art, photography, and historical artifacts. Commissions from emerging international artists further enrich the museum’s narrative, presenting migration through diverse perspectives.

Opening in 2025, FENIX serves as a bridge between past and future, inviting visitors to engage with the complexities of migration through architecture, history, and contemporary storytelling.


Rotterdam, Netherlands

Fenix Museum of Migration 

Hutong Bubble 32 is our first built prototype from its Beijing 2050 vision, originally presented at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale. The concept reimagines Beijing’s rapid urban development through micro-scale interventions that preserve and adapt the historic hutong neighborhoods, rather than replacing them with large-scale developments.

Amid ongoing demolition and neglect of old Beijing’s alleyway districts, Hutong Bubble 32 offers a functional yet symbolic insertion into the decaying urban fabric. Installed in a small courtyard, the bubble houses a toilet and staircase leading to a rooftop terrace. It is designed not as a standalone object, but as an extension of community life, encouraging new uses and social interactions.

Its smooth, mirrored surface reflects the traditional wood, brick, and greenery of the courtyard, creating a contrast between old and new while visually blending into its surroundings. Rather than displacing existing residents or history, the bubble coexists with them, catalyzing neighborhood revitalization.

These bubbles are intended to gradually form a network of architectural “membranes” that reactivate the city’s cultural core. Hutong Bubble 32 is a small but powerful gesture, emphasizing that meaningful urban progress can happen through intimate, community-focused design.


Beijing, China

Adaptive Reuse

Hutong Bubble 32

Cloud Center is a multi-purpose cultural venue for Aranya, a seaside arts community in Qinhuangdao, China. Located near the Beidaihe coastline, the building is conceived as a “floating cloud by the sea,” blending architecture with landscape and sky.

The structure houses a theater, exhibition hall, and press room within a flexible, open interior. Its cloud-like form is created through sweeping structural overhangs, with the largest extending 30 meters. These overhangs make the white mass appear to float above a transparent ground floor. A central core supports the structure, allowing for a column-free interior and adaptable event space.

The façade is made of hyperbolic white stained glass, giving the building a soft, reflective presence that changes with the light. Skylights bring natural light into the swirling ceiling of the main space, supporting both energy efficiency and the atmosphere.

A circular white stone garden surrounds the building, evoking a surreal, cosmic landscape. Pools and reflective surfaces blur the line between architecture and nature, creating a peaceful, otherworldly setting.



Aranya, China

Public

Aranya Cloud Center

The MAD Martian Collection is a limited-edition furniture series designed by Ma Yansong and released by Gallery ALL. Comprising five pieces a dining table, chaise lounge, candelabra, suspension lights, and console table the collection explores the intersection of science fiction and design through a futuristic, extraterrestrial lens.

The project began with a speculative question: what kind of environment would humans recreate once settled on Mars? The resulting forms, shaped over a two-year design process, reinterpret MAD’s Shanshui City philosophy within the context of a Martian future. Each piece reflects imagined landscapes beyond Earth, evoking natural forms in an unfamiliar world.

The collection draws inspiration from 20th-century science fiction, incorporating visual references from the Space Race era and early visions of life beyond Earth. This influence is visible in the sleek silhouettes and fluid geometries of the designs. Finished in a highly reflective metallic skin, the pieces appear adaptable, responsive, and detached from a specific time or place while still rooted in human memory and imagination.

Presented as part of Gallery ALL’s in-house commission program, the MAD Martian Collection is Ma Yansong’s first furniture series and debuted at Design Miami/Basel in 2017.


Miami, USA

Product

LI Guangchong, Casey Kell, Dmitry Seregin, ZHU Yuhao, YAN Ran, Matthew Pugh, Marco Gastoldi 

Martian Collection

Appearing so evident amidst a thriving metropolitan district of Harbin, China, spanning 200 meters in length, the China Wood Sculpture Museum sits as a locational anomaly, seemingly out of place, surrounded by a densely populated Chinese-style neighborhood and residential complexes. The museum embodies some of the foremost conceptual and formal ideals that define the work of MAD, bringing out an expression and abstraction of nature to an otherwise quotidian surrounding. The boundaries between solid and liquid are blurred throughout this 13,000 sqm building, referencing the local natural scenery and landscape.

The building's exterior is covered by polished steel plates, mirroring the surroundings and the changing light. The solid walls ensure minimal heat loss while the breaking and twisting motion of the emerging skylights splits the surface and allows in light from the low-hanging sun of northern China; this provides sufficient natural diffused illumination to the three halls on the interior.

The museum mainly houses local wood sculptures as well as paintings depicting the ice and snow of the regional scenery. In the context of the large-scale modern urban setting, the museum itself serves as a new interpretation of nature. The surreal interaction between the museum and the city breaks through the tedium of the urban shell, revitalizing the surroundings with a new cultural feature.


Harbin, China

Yu Kui, Daniel Gillen, Bas van Wylick, Diego Perez, Jordan Kanter, Liu Huiying, Huang Wei, Julian Sattler, Liu Weiwei, Tang Liu, Mao Peihong, Maria Alejandra Obregon, Nickolas Urano, Gus Chan, Shin Park, Alejandro Gonzalez

The Architectural Design and Research Institute of Harbin Institute of Technology 

Inhabit Group

Gehry Technologies

Zhejiang Jing Gong Steel Structure Co. Ltd.

Wood Sculpture Museum

Located at the western edge of the Milano Innovation District (MIND), MoLo is our vision for a new type of urban gateway that integrates mobility infrastructure, public space, and sustainable design. In collaboration with Andrea Nonni, Open Project, and Progeca, we designed MoLo as a dynamic entry point for visitors arriving from the Rho municipality and surrounding areas.

The building combines transportation, education, and civic functions. At its core is a five-story parking structure with space for 1,500 vehicles. Surrounding it are laboratories, offices, commercial areas, and a supermarket. A central public tunnel connects both sides of the site and features a sculptural metal staircase and an open gallery that links to the nearby Rho-Arese Park.

Vegetation climbs the building’s façades, softening its appearance and improving air quality. The top surface houses more than 8,000 square meters of photovoltaic panels that supply renewable energy to the site and district. MoLo is constructed using a prefabricated concrete frame and follows the DfMA (Design for Manufacturing and Assembly) approach to reduce material waste and improve efficiency.

MoLo is not just a logistics facility it’s a public interface and a sustainable anchor for the future of urban mobility.


Milan, Italy

Transportation

Andrea d’Antrassi

Romina Carpentieri , Alessandro Fisalli, Paolo Pirri, Francesco Nardacci, Aldo Schirripa Spagnolo, Francesco Pasta, Anna Spaggiari, Elena Bellocchio

Architetto Andrea Nonni

Open Project srl

Progeca srl

MOLO

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.