A large-scale residential complex in a mountain region and UNESCO Heritage Site 250 miles southwest of Shanghai steers clear of the typical urban high-rise.
From the bridge connecting bustling downtown Harbin to bucolic Sun Island, the new Harbin Opera House comes into view, with its impressive sloping forms that suggest the snow-capped mountains found in this northern Chinese region.
Instead of the boxlike apartment and commercial towers in cities everywhere, architect Yansong Ma, principal of Beijing-based MAD, prefers structures that are “organic and soft.”
With all of the mega-projects rising in Beijing and radically transforming the city’s skyline, architects and planners can easily forget that important change can happen on the small scale as well.