DEJI Cultural Complex

Nanjing, China

Finalist, 2023 A+Awards, Commercial - Commercial Interiors (>25,000 sq ft.)

Project Featured on Jul 27, 2023

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DEJI Cultural Complex

Nanjing, China

Finalist, 2023 A+Awards, Commercial - Commercial Interiors (>25,000 sq ft.)

Project Featured on Jul 27, 2023

Firm

THE TRIANGLE.JP CO.,LTD.

Type

Commercial › Retail
Cultural › Cultural Center Museum

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2022

DEJI Cultural Complex provides a fusion of cultural-arts and commercial facility. It has six extensive facilities including an art museum, a museum, a bookstore, shops, and a cafe on its top 7300㎡ floor. The coexistence of these facilities allows customers to stop by at one they would not have otherwise visited. What makes our design innovative is that we entirely got rid of walls between spaces. By eliminating partitions, it freed the space from having the boundaries between inside and outside—giving customers a little “preview” before entering the space. We used two main ideas to get rid of walls and to eliminate the boundaries between inside and outside. First is water. We installed large water basins at the entrance instead of walls. The second is “rods.” Instead of having solid walls, countless white rods are hanging from ceiling. It represents the elements found in nature, such as rain, clouds, and sunlight. The placement of the basins and rods blurs the boundary between the outside and the inside of the museum, which draws visitor’s attention without stepping into the museum. By combining facilities and eliminating walls, we were able to achieve creating a completely new entertainment venue where people feel more comfortable stopping by at place that was traditionally considered high culture and exclusive. The entire design reflects the culture, people, and the city of Nanjing. Our design team lived in Nanjing for several months to get the sense of its culture, people, environment, and ambiance. We incorporated what we learned into the design. For example, the passageway leading from entrance reflects the beauty you would see in the city such as lights filtering through lines of Aogiri trees on street. We noticed Nanjing doesn’t need a trendy flashy mall. We designed this plaza to complements the calm and classy feeling.