Xu Chen, RIBA Registered Architect, joined MAD in 2015. Xu Chen focuses on the relationship between cities, sites and architecture. In design practice, he is good at thinking and realizing ideal architectural solutions from multiple levels, including environment, aesthetics, function and technology, and has rich experience in large-scale projects from design to detail deepening and building construction, as well as the ability to design under strict control. He is also an excellent team manager. Xu Chen has led and participated in projects including Quzhou Sports Park,Tencent Dachanwan, Beijing Baiziwan Social Housing, Xiamen Xinhee Design Center, and Shenzhen Bay Culture Park.

Beijing Office

Xu Chen, RIBA Registered Architect, joined MAD in 2015. Xu Chen focuses on the relationship between cities, sites and architecture. In design practice, he is good at thinking and realizing ideal architectural solutions from multiple levels, including environment, aesthetics, function and technology, and has rich experience in large-scale projects from design to detail deepening and building construction, as well as the ability to design under strict control. He is also an excellent team manager. Xu Chen has led and participated in projects including Quzhou Sports Park, Tencent Dachanwan, Beijing Baiziwan Social Housing, Xiamen Xinhee Design Center, and Shenzhen Bay Culture Park.

Urban Forest is a high-rise tower for Chongqing, China’s youngest megacity. The project challenges conventional ideas of sustainability by reintroducing nature into dense urban environments, aiming to restore a sense of emotional connection to the natural world.
Inspired by Chongqing’s mountainous terrain and traditional Chinese philosophy, the tower mimics layered hillsides. Its staggered floors host sky gardens, open terraces, and green patios, creating multidimensional spaces for gathering, rest, and reflection. Instead of focusing on vertical power or high-tech systems, the design emphasizes harmony between people, architecture, and nature.

The building appears to dissolve into its environment, shaped by wind, light, and air. Its form breaks from the rigid verticality of traditional towers, offering a softer, more organic presence within the city.


Chongqing, China

Mixed Use

Urban Forest Chonqing

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

Superstar: A Mobile China Town is a conceptual project first exhibited at the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale in Uneternal City. It reimagines the traditional Chinatown model as a modern, self-sufficient, and mobile urban unit. The project challenges outdated representations of Chinese culture, rejecting nostalgic kitsch and fragmented development in favor of a cohesive, forward-looking environment.

Designed to host up to 15,000 people, the Superstar integrates cultural venues, housing, workshops, health resorts, food production systems, and sports facilities. It is fully self-sustaining growing its own food, recycling all waste, and operating independently from its host city. It includes spaces for creativity, learning, and collective memory, including a digital cemetery that honors the deceased.

More than a physical structure, the Superstar is described as a “benevolent virus,” injecting energy and innovation into the environments it temporarily inhabits. It can be deployed globally, acting as a cultural interface that exchanges new Chinese identity with local conditions.

The first imagined site is the outskirts of Rome, offering a contrast between the city’s ancient legacy and the Superstar’s dynamic future. This mobile Chinatown merges nature and technology, community and individuality, tradition and innovation, proposing a new model for global, adaptable urban living rooted in cultural authenticity.

Worldwide

Adaptive Reuse

Chen Shuyu, Zheng Tao, Fernie Lai, David William Nightingale, Matthias Werner Helmreich, Bryan Alan Oknyansky, Zach Hines, Tom James

Super Star

A Village Under the Dome is our proposal for the Zhuhai Cultural Arts Center, situated on the former site of Yinkeng Village, a historic settlement dating back to the Northern Song Dynasty. Rather than replacing the demolished village with a typical large-scale civic complex, we reimagined the site as a protected cultural landscape preserving the original village layout and memories while introducing new functions.

Instead of erasing the site’s history, we organized the center’s programs into small-scale, village-like buildings that follow the original street network and topography. These structures are unified under a translucent dome that floats above the village ruins, acting as both shelter and symbol. The dome is supported by a cable-membrane structure, remaining open at its base to encourage access from all directions and blend with the sky like a soft mist.

Key elements of Yinkeng Village, including its ancient banyan tree, pond, and plazas, are preserved and re-integrated into the civic space. The design prioritizes community, memory, and emotional connection, advocating for urban renewal that respects history.

By merging old and new, A Village Under the Dome reflects a civic architecture rooted in cultural continuity and human experience, offering an alternative vision for development in rapidly urbanizing cities.



Zhuhai, China

Zhuhai Cultural Arts Center

The design proposal starts with what is already given. The vibrancy of the natural topography is echoed and further magnified in the crater-shaped forms; therein lies the dialogue of the built and natural worlds, the mutual interplay of space and shape. The surface of the ‘mountains’ is a high-tech, eco-friendly pleated skin system. The smocking-like envelope provides air flow to the building while keeping energy consumption at a minimum by utilizing solar energy.

The core of the building is more an emotion construct: open courtyards in the interior create rhythmic patterns through the space and gesture back to the spatial order exemplified by the Forbidden City and ancient Chinese gardens. This project seeks meaning in its immaterial qualities, in spaces imbued with a sublime natural essence. For all its size, a single tree, a patch of bamboo, or a pond can become the central figures of the space, as they contribute to a meaningful experience for the user. It is sustainability in the sense of sustenance, in the nourishing potential of architecture to connect people to nature and to each other.


Taichung, China

Culture

Jordan Kanter, Jtravis Russett, Irmi Reiter, Diego Perez, Dai Pu, Rasmus Palmquist, Art Terry, Chie Fuyuki

Taichung Convention Center

Located on Haikou’s west coast, surrounded by sports stadiums and a National Wetland Park, the museum draws from the site’s dual urban and natural context, one where a “primeval rainforest and technology of the future meet.” Set against the backdrop of a rich tropical rainforest, the museum’s main pavilion is shaped like a cloud in dialogue with nature.

Encompassing a total area of 46,528 square meters, the museum will feature 27,782 square meters of above-ground facilities including permanent exhibition space, a planetarium, a giant-screen theater, and a flying theater. The museum’s interior structure consists of three floor-to-ceiling cores, curved trusses, spiral ramps, and a roof, all exposed to achieve harmony between the architectural forms and structural system. A skylight in the museum’s dome bathes the spacious atrium in natural light, creating a bright and transparent environment. A spiraling, sloping exhibition space ascends from the central hall over five floors, connecting visitors across the museum.

The exhibition experience begins on the fifth floor, where the elevator opens to a 360-degree viewing platform with the sea and cityscape visible in the distance. Visitors on this uppermost floor will begin by exploring the technology and space galleries before proceeding down the ramp to the ocean and life science galleries on the fourth floor, the math and science galleries on the third floor, and the multimedia interactive experience area and children’s playground on the second floor. As visitors travel down the ramp, they can simultaneously enjoy the scenery and the exhibitions, and a gallery running alongside the ramp extends the viewing experience.

Haikou, China

Building Area

Above Ground

Underground

Hainan Science and Technology Museum

Chaoyang Park Plaza is located on the southern edge of Beijing’s Chaoyang Park. Inspired by traditional Chinese Shanshui paintings, the project introduces natural forms into the urban core, creating a spatial experience that merges city and landscape.

The development includes a group of ten buildings that evoke imagery of mountains, valleys, rocks, and water. Twin office towers rise like peaks beside the park’s lake, linked by a transparent atrium. Low-rise commercial buildings resemble eroded stones, arranged to form a quiet garden space. Armani apartment buildings feature staggered balconies that open residents to natural light and park views.

With curved black-and-white forms, the architecture reflects the layered tones of Chinese ink paintings. Pine trees, bamboo, rocks, and ponds are woven throughout the site, grounding the project in Eastern spatial traditions.

Functional systems are integrated into the design, including vertical fins that support natural ventilation and a cooling pond at the base of the towers. The project has earned LEED Gold certification for its energy-efficient strategies.



Beijing, China

Chaoyang Park Plaza

The Star is a proposed project, located on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood. Designed as a new model for the office of the future, the 22-story tower integrates nature, light, and open space throughout, promoting well-being and creativity in the workplace.

Inspired by the nearby Hollywood Hills, the building’s organic form softens the skyline while connecting urban life with natural elements. Terraced green spaces at street level and throughout the tower invite the public in and create shared moments between work and city life.

The building offers flexible floorplans with generous access to outdoor terraces and greenery, supporting a healthier work-life balance. Rather than treating nature as an amenity, it becomes central to the office experience. The tower’s mass tapers upward, creating varied spaces and views, and its design encourages collaboration and reflection.



Office

The Star

Jiaxing Train Station is a transportation infrastructure project located in the center of Jiaxing, a historic city southwest of Shanghai. The station rethinks conventional transit models by combining infrastructure with public space, culture, and nature.

At the heart of the site is a reconstructed version of the original 1907 station house, recreated using historical archives and local materials. This historic building is paired with a floating metal canopy and a sunken transportation hub, where platforms, waiting areas, and circulation are placed underground to free the surface for public use.

Above ground, the design extends an existing park, adding over 1,500 trees and a central lawn surrounded by low-rise buildings that house commercial and cultural programs. These spaces appear as sculpted green hills, offering open areas for public events. The entry plaza and gardens blend civic life with nature, turning the train station into a destination beyond transit.

The station design emphasizes human scale, ecological sensitivity, and integration with the city’s existing urban fabric. By combining transport with landscape and community functions, Jiaxing Train Station proposes a new model for future urban infrastructure.



Jiaxing, China

Jiaxing Train Station

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.

