MAD's vision for Shenzhen Bay Culture Square is twofold: to create a platform for international exchange in design and culture, and to provide a coastal public space open to the city throughout the day. Here, people run, spend time with their children, rest, look out over the sea, take photographs and, between the contemporary city and the ancient ocean, find a place to step beyond everyday perception and imagine a different relationship with nature and time.
"Much of my work is guided by the same question: can public space be more open and equal? Shenzhen is a young, efficient city, and this site was entirely reclaimed from the sea. How can our design turn ancient nature into people's imagination of the future—and make a large cultural building feel intimate, in service of human experience?"
Ma Yansong, Founder and Principal Partner, MAD Architects.
Shenzhen Bay Culture Square by MAD. Photograph by Zhu Yumeng.
The Roof Becomes a Park
The undulating green roofs extend seamlessly into Shenzhen Talent Park. On the eastern side, the road has been sunk underground, freeing the entire ground level for pedestrians. Visitors can enter from every direction, ascend gentle slopes, follow winding rooftop paths and reach viewpoints overlooking the bay. On the western side, facing the main avenue and the skyline of corporate headquarters, two 24-hour passages lined with suspended illuminated display windows connect the north and south halls. A pedestrian bridge links the rooftop park directly to the surrounding urban fabric, allowing the city, plaza and coastline to merge into a continuous landscape.
Shenzhen Bay Culture Square by MAD. Photograph by Zhu Yumeng.
An Ancient Future: Water Recedes, Stones Emerge
The complex comprises two groups of buildings, to the north and south, dedicated respectively to creative design and scientific living, and includes exhibition galleries, educational spaces, a design library and a multifunctional theatre.
Based on the idea of an "ancient future," the museum is fragmented into a series of independent volumes that gradually step down in height from the city towards the sea, preserving views across the site. The façades are clad in natural white granite arranged in slender vertical strips that follow the architecture's gentle curves.
Shenzhen Bay Culture Square by MAD. Photograph by Zhu Yumeng.
A Spatial Rhythm of Movement and Pause
Entrances are distributed along the building's different urban edges, avoiding a prescribed route. A ring-shaped atrium set among the stone volumes connects the exhibition galleries, while daylight slowly moves through the fair-faced concrete interiors throughout the day.
In the main galleries, the ribbed concrete structure remains exposed on the ceiling, discreetly integrating lighting and building services. The tallest gallery in the north hall rises 16 metres, creating a calm, expansive space illuminated by diffused toplight, while the south hall's long-span domed gallery unfolds as a low, horizontal volume.
At the centre of the complex, a shallow reflecting pool evokes the coastal wetlands, while the plaza and rooftops host outdoor performances, art markets and festivals throughout the year.
Shenzhen Bay Culture Square by MAD. Photograph by Hufton+Crow.
Shenzhen Bay Culture Square by MAD. Photograph by ACF.
Beside the Flyway
Shenzhen Bay is one of the principal stopovers along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway. Every autumn and winter, tens of thousands of birds—including black-faced spoonbills, plovers and sandpipers—rest and feed in its mangrove wetlands.
The building maintains a low, fragmented profile to avoid interfering with this ecological corridor. Its roofs are planted exclusively with native species, while the vegetation between the volumes gradually descends towards the shoreline, merging with the wetland rather than defining its edge.
Shenzhen Bay Culture Square by MAD. Photograph by Zhang Chao.
A Cultural Landmark Without a Centre
Rather than presenting itself as an isolated landmark, the project is conceived as an evolving public landscape connecting the headquarters district with the coastline and the commercial centre with the cultural realm. Birds fly overhead along their migratory routes, people walk across the rooftops and through the site, while inside the bustle of the city gives way to a calm atmosphere.
Ecology, the city and human experience are no longer understood as separate domains. Responding to the speed of the contemporary metropolis by reclaiming the idea of ancient nature, the architecture deliberately recedes into the background, reducing the distance between the cultural institution and the public while establishing a dialogue between past and future.
