Project: Starry Metropolis
Architects: Mind Design
Location: Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China
Area: 9,860 sf
Photographs by: Zhang Qilin
Starry Metropolis Interior Design by Mind Design
The contemporary space design aesthetics are precious for the old industrial town without a specific style at Xigu, Lanzhou, Gansu, like the green in a desert. With the interior design by Mind Design, the sales office for Vanke • Starry Metropolis is enough to be called “Oasis” even green is not seen here.
The project introduces “starlight” into the room with its simple, open and modern appearance. With an urban aesthetic barrier, it isolates itself from the secular life. While bringing peace and harmony to people, it also marks a new starting point for Xigu and even Lanzhou to reform and develop.
The designers have injected refreshing fashion charm into this region which boasts a long history and profound culture.
Located in the center of the lobby, Time Capsule connects with water under it and with a mirror above it. The square and circle mutually supplement and the dynamic and static overlap, showing perfect oriental aesthetics. Time Capsule is a giant installation of art at the entrance. Like amber, it sealed Lanzhou’s featured plants, animals, and cultural symbols inside, to resist fatigue with the beauty of the past and the present.
Not limited to concretely expressing “starlight”, Mind Design echoed the theme with the help of the “starlight” of the art installation and nonopaque stone with spots. From the lobby, the space is constantly changing, the starry sky is constantly expanding, and the value of life is constantly iterating.
According to the development team, “the building is the carrier of the landscape and the interior, namely, a box. The interior and landscape materialized ‘starlight’.”
The building, landscape and interior were integrated into an inseparable whole as the ‘starlight’ that lights up Xigu together. The closed facade came from the essence of multifaceted thinking. People can keep away from the hustle and bustle of a common life here.
As a key node of the project and the center of the space, the sand table area connects the lobby, model room and gallery, and also the social fields such as booth, water bar area and consultation area. The designers interpreted “starlight” as “the delicate colors produced by shade and light”.
The interior is open and flowing. People complete their self-declaration of the value of life in such suddenly bright environment. Starry Metropolis is just like the Peach Blossom.
As an ideal place, Starry Metropolis continues to write the feeling and longing for this city. Flowing art twists and turns in the space as if the eternal melody congeals here, and infuses a different kind of natural true interest into Lanzhou, an inland city.
“As a northern city, Lanzhou has a tough winter. On the one hand, the treatment of a warm tone is a response to the geographical culture, and on the other hand, it can produce a warm and bright psychological effect, driving away the chill atmosphere in autumn and winter here.”
For this city with a strong “family culture”, the designers have presented an area of super-scale sunken booths, which can accommodate visitors of three generations together, who can sit around the oven and return to the private territory with “family” as a unit. The light belt lights up the edge of the booths, producing a floating effect, and creating a hazy feeling together with the mirror at the ceiling of the building.
The transition of times is showed in the intersection of space. The past and possible future of Xigu are presented in the form of image or model, to open up the imagination of high-end dwellings.
Taken from those of the land and the Yellow River, the pale brown colors in different color gradations constitute the main tone of the social space of Vanke • Starry Metropolis. The fiber-optic light passes through the ceiling and produces flares which are also “starlight”…The transparent and open building is wrapped in natural starlight, reshaping the landscape and environment, virtual or real.
The nonopaque stone wall looks like sand-containing air, and has the rough and primitive beauty after long weathering, just like the sense of profound vicissitudes and history in northwest China. On this background, the wavy mountains grow freely, repeating the lofty sentiments of “the Yellow River flowing around the mountains” and “the deep mountains connecting with the broad desert”.
To avoid the usual logic of evoking “machinery, workshop and black dust” when talking about “industrial memories”, Vanke and Mind Design have made the cultural story line deeper and longer, by citing the romance of mountains and rivers, and developing Lanzhou towards a delicate metropolis.
The colors of the main space are clean and pure, and the interior and exterior are harmonized, providing a utopian ideal realm. The designers hope that when people walk into the VIP room, they can feel a kind of “calm”, that is, real tranquility in the heart. Although the visual feelings are different, the design logic is the same.
Taking “the Wizard of Oz” as the theme of the children’s area, the designers have built a green dreamland through space design and color collocation. In the space, on the one hand, the design of optical fiber and spherical light can eliminate the sense of oppression caused by the big storey height, and echo the theme of “starlight” to increase childlike interest.
Starting from Vanke · Starry Metropolis, the “starlight” will gradually shine at Xigu. With housing as the pioneer, the increasingly perfect supporting services such as commerce and art will slowly develop a living picture that meets international standards and cutting-edge trends of thought. When everything is ready, the sales office will be transformed into a “lobby to return home”, which truly embrace a beautiful life as the materialization of the “Utopian” spirit…
-Project description and images provided by Mind Design
