Few days ago, MAD Architects finally revealed their latest design for Beijing. The green building project, designed by Ma Yansong, was launched at Times Square, in New York. The project is a contemporary interpretation of China’s ancient natural philosophy in contemporary city and represents the continuation of “Shan-Shui City” – a design concept the architect has been pursuing. The location that surrounds the Chaoyang Park is reserved for extreme-modernism buildings and Yansong’s aim was to infuse the vigorous Shan-Shui culture into the new urbanization with this particular project.

The project is actually an addition to the world’s second largest city part and its author hopes that the high-rise won’t become the boundary which would separate the park from the city. Actually, the aim was opposite – by introducing Shan-Shui elements into the design, the building and the park are merged with the landscape and they became the natural extension of the city.

The architectural complex could be read as a futuristic city landscape painting in which the high-rise act as the mountain peaks, individual office buildings as the slope, high-end offices as the ridge and residential buildings as mountain ranges in combination with classical landscape elements like lakes, springs, forest, streams, valleys, rocks and peaks. However, the design started with the understanding that the park is the part of the plot and the natural beauty was translated into architectural realm. The result is an organic, naturally grown and not built assemblage, that successfully merges with its surrounding environment and people can feel both the grandeur of the holistic landscape and its exquisite inside scenery.