Location: Wenzhou, China.

Architect: IAPA PTY.LTD. (international architectural platform Australia).

The proposal for the Wetland Museum of Wenzhou in China aims to fuse landscape and architecture into a single entity, creating a dual condition where nature becomes a part of architecture and architecture is dissolved into nature. The project is located in the heart of the city, where wetlands divide it into two different zones. The main concept is to redefine the relationship between landscape and architecture, experimenting with the organization of space. The ‘floating’ architecture is reinterpreted into a contemporary architectural language, creating a series of in-between spaces that take the user to different levels of interior and exterior spaces, making the experience of visiting the Wetland museum diverse, vibrant, and seamless. The bulk of the design is lifted up to give the landscape space to continue underneath the building and respect its natural surroundings and preserve the ecological landscape. The architectural space combines a sense of completion and openness by using a gradient domain between transparency and opaqueness where different transparent/opaque conditions create a series of unexpected spaces. In the Wetland museum, different voids and openings enable vertical/lateral depth, layering, visual and physical connections, and diverse interrelations between different parts of the complex. The project aims to create a cultural place for different groups of people that bridges the past and the present. The landscape, which is classically understood as being separate from architecture, becomes an integrated part of the wetland museum to coincide with the experience of visiting the museum and walking through the garden.

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