Dixon joined MAD in 2008, having acted as Head of Operations for their Beijing office from 2008 to 2011. He is now in charge of managing MAD's practice in the United States and the Middle East, as well as managing operations, projects, and overall strategy of Los Angeles Office. Dixon helped to conceptualize and organize the firm’s installation in partnership with Olafur Eliasson, “Feelings are Facts” at UCCA.

Los Angeles Office

Dixon joined MAD in 2008, having acted as Head of Operations for their Beijing office from 2008 to 2011. He is now in charge of managing MAD's practice in the United States and the Middle East, as well as managing operations, projects, and overall strategy of Los Angeles Office. Dixon helped to conceptualize and organize the firm’s installation in partnership with Olafur Eliasson, “Feelings are Facts” at UCCA. 

Mirage is our proposal for the renovation of Montparnasse Tower in Paris. Designed by Ma Yansong, the scheme reimagines the controversial skyscraper often criticized as the “scar of Paris” as a large-scale optical installation that reflects its surroundings poetically and unexpectedly.

Completed in 1973, Montparnasse Tower stands as one of Paris’ tallest structures, but its imposing black form has long been seen as out of place within the city’s classical landscape. Our concept uses angled glass panels to create a concave façade that transforms the tower into a city-scale mirror.

The design reflects Paris’ rooftops and skyline onto the upper portion of the tower, while the sky appears mirrored on the lower section, blurring the boundary between architecture and atmosphere. From certain angles, iconic landmarks like the Eiffel Tower appear upside down in the tower’s reflection, creating a surreal and dreamlike effect.

Rather than erasing history, Mirage offers a new lens to interpret the past. Our approach is not to conceal the building’s presence but to soften its impact through reflection, light, and illusion inviting viewers to reconsider how architecture can engage with memory, scale, and its urban context.

Paris, France

Adaptive Reuse

Mirage - Montparnasse Tower

Amazing Walk is an immersive installation for Milan Design Week 2024, created in collaboration with Amazon and INTERNI. Located in the historic Cortile della Farmacia at the University of Milan, the installation explores the relationship between architecture and nature through form, material, and light.

Standing 7.5 meters tall, the structure is made of hundreds of triangular aluminum components and is built without internal columns. Its mountain-like form encourages exploration and interaction, offering a space that feels both grounded and surreal.

A semi-reflective, transparent membrane covers the pavilion, allowing light and the surrounding architecture to pass through while providing a sense of shelter. By day, the surface reflects light and movement; by night, integrated lighting and mist soften the structure’s edges, creating a floating effect.

Built with sustainable materials, Amazing Walk shifts in appearance throughout the day and is further enhanced by virtual reality elements that add an interactive digital layer.

The installation invites visitors to pause, connect, and reimagine the boundary between the natural and built environment.



Milan, Italy

Installation 

Amazing Walk

Floating Island is a vision for the World Trade Center site a horizontal, floating structure that challenges the verticality of traditional skyscrapers. Instead of a towering office block, the project proposes a suspended landscape that connects surrounding buildings while opening the ground to public life.

Designed for the digital era, it condenses business functions meeting spaces, media centers, and transport hubs into a compact core. Around it, public programs such as cinemas, parks, restaurants, and a man-made lake create a diverse, accessible urban environment.

By merging architecture with landscape, Floating Island encourages horizontal flow and social interaction, breaking the isolation of high-rise towers. It reimagines the WTC not as a symbol, but as a space for civic renewal where development becomes the memorial.


New York City, USA

Rebuilt World Trade Center

Meteor is our reinterpretation of Dior’s Medallion Chair, created for Dior Maison and unveiled during Milan Design Week 2021 at Palazzo Citterio.

Recast in monochrome 3D-printed polyurethane, the chair appears frozen in motion merging past and future. Its flowing, sculptural form reflects Ma’s architectural approach, blending structure and nature to evoke emotion and movement.

Meteor explores time, space, and transformation, turning a classical icon into a futuristic object. It reflects MAD's ’ ongoing pursuit of harmony between design, philosophy, and form.

Rome, Italy

Product

Zeng Hao

Dior Meteor

Niku Rug is our contribution to the Architecture for Dogs exhibition, curated by Kenya Hara. Designed for the Labrador Retriever, the rug responds to the breed’s loyalty, sociability, and need for close contact with its owner.

Shaped like a cut of meat niku meaning “meat” in Japanese the rug is a woolen, DIY pad featuring marbled patterns in three colors to mimic the look of real meat. Offered in three sizes, it adapts as the dog grows from puppy to adult. Unlike fixed dog kennels, Niku Rug is mobile and can be placed throughout the home, reinforcing Labrador’s role as a close family companion.

The design combines function and humor, transforming everyday pet furniture into a playful architectural object. It reflects MAD's interest in scale, material, and the emotional bond between living beings and space.


Beijing, China

Jacob Hu, Felix Amiss

Hiroshi Yoda, Ding Yifei (Courtesy Shanghai Himalayas Museum), architecturefordogs.com

Niku Rug

Invisible Border is an installation for Milan Design Week 2016, held in the Cortile d’Onore of the Università degli Studi di Milano as part of Interni magazine’s “Open Borders” exhibition.

The translucent structure redefines the threshold between the historic loggias and courtyard garden, offering a fluid passage between old and new. Made from lightweight ETFE with a gradient tint, the installation shifts with the wind, reflecting sky colors by day and glowing at night.

Inspired by the flow of wind and water, the form creates an organic transition zone that invites reflection, movement, and conversation. It challenges the idea of borders as static and closed, transforming them into open, engaging spaces.

By blurring lines between tradition and contemporary expression, Invisible Border connects the past with the present through light, material, and form.



Hiroki Fujino

Maco Thecnology srl, Roberto Maffei

iGuzzini Illuminazione

Ferrarelle

Invisible Border

In Feelings are facts (2010), Olafur Eliasson and Ma Yansong challenge our everyday patterns of spatial orientation. Vision functions as our primary, default sense for navigation, but this expansive installation induces initial insecurity in its visitors by radically reducing visibility, thereby suggesting the need to invent new models for perception. Basing this project on a series of previous experiments with atmospheric density, Eliasson introduces condensed banks of artificially produced fog into the gallery, whose dimensions have been further altered by substantially lowering the ceiling and constructing an inclined wooden floor. Hundreds of fluorescent lights are installed in the ceiling as a grid of red, green, and blue zones. By permeating the fog, these lights create coloured walk-through spaces that, in Eliasson's words, function to "make the volume of the space explicit." The coloured zones introduce a scale of measurement in the gallery, their varying size and organization referencing urban planning grids. At each colour boundary, two hues blend to create transitional slivers of cyan, magenta, and yellow. Walking through the dense, illuminated atmosphere, visitors can navigate by using this intuitive colour atlas. Another means of navigation is the floor construction. Whereas movement on a plane sur face can be effortlessly accomplished, the sloping floor challenges visitors to readjust their balance, constantly having to shift their weight and body posture to counterbalance the inclination. This fact emphasizes the crucial role of the moving body in our perception of our surroundings. The further visitors venture into the space, the steeper the floor gets, until the point where it becomes a wave-like curved wall. Since the ceiling imitates this construction, a seemingly boundless space is discerned above.

Olafur Eliasson


Space and light bring life into existence. There is no space, unless given light and boundary. Space has never existed, but rather exists only in the specific feelings it induces. Space in reality, exists only in sensuality. With expanding desire, everything is managed with utmost efficiency. Our feelings and sensibilities are seeing facts in the context of habituated life. Not until shutting our eyes, can we feel the world from within, space and light will touch your soul.

Ma Yansong

Jérôme Sans, Guo Xiaoyan

Olafur Eliasson & Ma Yansong—Feelings are facts

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

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.


Lu Junliang (Dixon)