Joyful Community

English description provided by the architects.

Our project is located in Fengcheng Town, Fengxian District, approximately 30 kilometers from downtown Shanghai.

The site occupies 120,000 square meters, with total floor area of approximately 200,000 square meters. The site, originally industrial land, has been transformed under the urban renewal agenda into a mixed-use area for social welfare, medical, and cultural facilities.

Our discussions then shifted to making the community more attractive, which creates a central hub of this "urban fringe landscape", not only for future residents but also for their neighborhood. The idea of turning a retirement community into a "regional vitality center" excited us.

At the conceptual design stage, we had proposed the idea of "village-like" community with the design approach from an urban perspective. This idea pushed us constantly to create richer public space forms, more open traffic arrangements, and flexible cluster divisions.

We knew this would present significant challenges for operations, but fortunately, everyone believed in the project's core principles of "diversity + openness."

The area of facilities are arranged in a horizontal "T" shape, extending towards the urban interface while penetrating into the inside of community. This maximizes external and internal interfaces attracting both urban citizens and community residents to gather.

Our envisioned future state is for management boundaries to shrink to individual residential clusters, allowing the remaining spaces to be fully open to the public.

The negotiation between "public" and "private" boundaries became an ongoing topic throughout the project and will likely remain relevant as the community evolves.

These modules have relatively independent forms, directly facing public spaces such as plazas, alleys, and courtyards. Our design intent was to create places with their own "addresses," offering the potential for independent development in the future.

These loops, with varying spatial characteristics, serve not only as efficient transit paths but also as key spaces for activities and social interactions. The Sports Complex at the main entrance, it was designed for urban engagement, host numerous cultural and sports functions. Transparent glass corridors with large horizontal spans connect the main buildings on either side, forming an "Activity Loop".

The 22 boxes in the Village Center are connected by second-floor glass corridors and balcony pathways, forming a continuous loop across the area. The same 22 boxes also feature a "covered corridor" created by the second-floor slabs and bridges, weaving through various courtyards on the ground level.

As a surprised result, numerous delightful small spaces emerged on the site — terraces at corners, skylights above, courtyards by the paths. Many fascinating nooks and sightlines were discovered only after completion. We hope this sense of spatial curiosity will be shared with future residents and visitors..

The first floor of the decentralized facilities is scattered with "undefined" spaces, including 22 inward-facing studios and outward-facing glass boxes, which could be flower shops, cafes, clubs, and salons The over-four-meter-wide corridors of the Sports Complex are also undefined.

Ending - Our idea began with an "anti-utopian" sentiment but seemed to evolve into another form of utopia: a diverse, open, and evolving community for all. We seem to have forgotten this is a community for elderly, and this is precisely the beginning of realizing the ideal.