West Zhejiang Agro-Tech Industry Park

The West Zhejiang Agro-Tech Industry Park is meant to drive new industrial and economic growth in Quzhou, in Zhejiang province. The winning design takes its cue from the mountainous landscape around Quzhou. Staggered towers and cascading platforms, drawn in clean geometric lines, abstract a range of peaks rising out of a sea of clouds.

A conventional retail podium closes itself off as an opaque, monolithic block. The industry park opens up instead into a series of stepped, interconnected terraces, which makes the complex a stage for the life of the city. Each outdoor platform sits alongside a civic program inside and extends it into the open air. The public realm carries on across the site at several levels instead of stopping at the building’s edge.

The towers, the podium, a sunken plaza and a central gallery called the Cloud Deck frame a shared focal space together, where visitors can gather for performances, talks and other events. Sky lobbies at the crown of each tower bring public activity up to the skyline. From the sunken plaza to the tower tops, the result is a multi-level network of public spaces that can host anything from a small informal gathering to an event for the whole city.