At times, creating a living scene with a building appears more captivating than the mere act of architectural design. On a tropical island adorned with swaying pinnate broad-leafed trees and an endless azure sky, the building's roof extends freely to condense into a thin cloud-like appearance at the sea edge. Travelers pause beneath the cloud to dine, converse, or sit cross-legged and do nothing, idle away the time.

The project CAPE site is located in the northeastern section of Century Park in Haikou, Hainan Province. In the northwest corner of the park sits the newest landmark building in Haikou, the Cloudscape of Haikou. That is a round, fluffy white cloud, and we aim to create a thin, pitch-black slice of cloud to echo it. However, the client politely rejected our wild and fanciful ideas. Well, actually, white is also acceptable for us.

A regular rectangular site facing the estuary of the Haidian River, separated from the Century Park by the Century Bridge on the west side. A bus parking lot is located to the south of the site before development, and to the east are hotels and residential areas facing tourists and residents. It seems reasonable to assign dining and leisure entertainment functions to such a project site. Local inhabitants strolling post-dinner, visitors enjoying the park, and guests catching up with friends converge here to soak in the lively atmosphere and refreshing sea breeze amidst the extended daylight hours and brief evenings.

There was originally a coconut grove and several large banyan trees flourishing in the center of the site, and we wanted to preserve those trees and allow the building to grow up from among the leafy trees, so that the wide eaves were connected to the shade of the leaves. The building's silhouette follows the shape of a coconut grove. The building's external boundaries are given the freedom to be close to nature. Visitors can enjoy the serene outdoor space under the expansive eaves and the dappled sunlight filtering through the tree shadows. Inside the building, space has been reserved for the growth of trees, and the house is thus rewarded with a shade-filled courtyard.

Encircling the courtyard and spreading outwards, there are five L-shaped "boxes" for stores. Each box comprises of four components: upper and lower floors, along with outdoor space on both levels, and each cluster of space is for the operation of a single store. Five stores arranged in a centripetal layout are linked by a central courtyard. Each store is oriented towards a distinct direction, either overlooking the ocean or nestled within the coconut grove. Whether seated indoors behind a table or outdoors at a seat, the view seen by each shop's patron of the shop’s view of the outside is unique and worth appreciating. And the store's staff passage, procurement passage, waste disposal passage, smoke exhaust and ventilation system, and other supporting facilities that do not need to be part of the guest experience are placed in the central courtyard, concealed beneath the shade of the trees. This design ensures a complete separation between the logistics flow and the business flow.

In contrast to the independence of individual spaces on the first floor, the second floor exhibits a greater degree of openness, characterized by interconnected spaces and a seamless integration of indoor and outdoor areas. Sitting on the second floor of the stepped platform that ascends inward, the wide eaves lifted upwards allow most positions on the second floor to have an unobstructed view of the surrounding scenery. This establishes a profound emotional connection between people and the sea, sky, and trees in the artificial space.

A building imbued with a robust commercial ambiance frequently encounters the entry of multiple independent-minded merchants, resulting in a facade that is intricate and chaotic. How to maintain the independent brand tone of the stores while unifying the building order into a whole? We dismantled it into two parts at a height of 3 meters waistline on the facade, leaving the design of the facade below the waistline to the store to design on their own, and selected five distinct styles of grilles for the part above 3 meters up to the floor slab. Large-area use of grilles can provide better ventilation for buildings in tropical areas, and the visual effect of the facade becomes more diverse and rich due to the use of grilles.

In this manner, the five groups of spaces are covered by the floating huge curved roof. Amidst the relatively orderly architectural context, the store can still maintain its uniqueness through the random occurrence of landscape sightlines and the free and changeable facades. The state of space is independent yet chaotic.

Looking up toward the sky from the ground, two large roofs stretching horizontally, lightly and freely staggering apart, becoming overlapping clouds floating by the Century Bridge. People's activity contributes to its coming together, and its intertwining also mobilizes the gathering and dispersal of people. People meet, reunite, part, and reminisce here. The meals eaten, the drinks drunk, those flavors like smoke floating into the mid-air, condensing into the white eaves where we once sought shelter from the sun and rain together. That is the scenery of the city, and everyone's story.

“Behold, these white clouds have coalesced and dissipated, dissipated and coalesced, and life has been on and off, and it has been like this.”