The tourist center is located in Liming Road, Lijiang, Yunnan province in China, the departure station of the light rail to Yulong Snow Mountain. The location gives our tourist center an enormous potential as a convenient transfer station connecting Lijiang old town and Yulong Snow Mountain.
As the gradually rise of global temperature resulting in the shrinking of glaciers, the recovery of snow mountain has become a human desire. Therefore, the interaction between human and snow becomes valuable and irreplaceable. The design concept of our tourist center – a falling snowflake from Yulong Snow Mountain, which fits well with the surrounding environment and building function, express the human’s feeling of awe to nature and the desire to snow. From the perspective of landscape design, the ice mark left by ‘falling snowflake’ forms the landscape texture in the site. In the architectural design of building, the five building blocks surrounding atrium guide tourists enter our tourist center from different entrances and the scenery outside the window encourage tourists to slow down. Outside the tourist center, four U shape squares surrounding the building is effective to evacuate human traffic and relief traffic pressure.
The element of hexagon was adopted in the design process of building façade. In normal times, the sun shines into the building through the gradient façade, forming dappled pattern of light and shadow, which looks like flying snowflakes. Responding to the concept of harmonious coexistence between human, building and nature, the traditional local materials are adopted in the building façade and the building is well-integrated into its natural environment with a modest and gentle gesture.