MAD founder Ma Yansong has already firmly established himself as the main architectural star from China. The high status allows him to realize the most daring in form and ambitious in design projects. One of them - a giant sports campus in the city of Quzhou, Zhejiang province in the east of China - was presented by the architects as a complex of huge Martian craters. But practically recreating the sloping mountains of the Red Planet, the architects still intend to give them a more "earthly" look due to the large area of lawns and, as it were, caught on the tops of "clouds".
Large-scale construction will be organized in two phases, the first of which has already started at the end of September this year. The total area of the site is about 70 hectares, and the total building area will formally be about 340,000 m2. A stadium for 30,000 fans, a gymnasium for 10,000 spectators, a swimming pool with stands for 2,000 seats, a complex of national sports, outdoor sports grounds and, in addition, a museum of science and technology, a hotel, a youth center, and shops are planned. True, it is practically impossible to separate specific objects from the created landscape in this case.
The sports campus is fenced off from the surrounding city by a forest belt. In the center of it there is an artificial reservoir, conceived as a "sunken garden". Craters of objects will gather around it. The relief turned out with green slopes smoothly flowing into each other and, although not sharp, but strong changes in elevation, so that visitors will have to dodge, and climb and descend, enjoying constantly changing and completely unexpected views. A well-thought-out system of viewing platforms will further enhance the experience of the landscape and emphasize the significance of the process of contemplation itself.
The huge object of land art became a continuation of the ideas stated by MAD in the first, and
the unrealized project of the Museum of Narrative Art of George Lucas, and the development of the concept of a new rapprochement of architecture with nature, promoted by Ma Yansong, based not on submission, imitation and mimicry, but on equal partnerships and a constant dialogue between man and the environment.
