Qingdao, China

“In search of organized complexity” is the motto of Beijing-based firm HHD_FUN, and that’s just what founders Zhenfei Wang, Luming Wang, and principal architect Hongyu Li created with this new park for the 2014 International Horticultural Exposition in Qingdao, on China’s eastern coast. Designed around a diamond-shaped grid, the Earthly Pond Service Center and its sister pavilion, the Heavenly Water Service Center, accommodate a range of programmatic needs while the infrastructure follows the grade of the landscape, providing multiple access points to and views of the existing ponds. Glazed volumes at varying elevations contain retail spaces, offices, and a post office. HHD_FUN’s scheme preserved much of the site’s existing vegetation and created planted roof decks that connect via winding pathways to a central sunken plaza encircling the wetland area.