Architecture, Urban Design & Collective Space
BEIJING, CHINA
TIANYUN AFFORDABLE OFFICE LANDSCAPE
ARPPA DESIGN STUDIO /
PRAXIS D'ARCHITECTURE
Type: Landscape / Commercial
Size: 6100 m2
Project Leader: Isaac Landeros
Team:Jialong Wen, Huan Kai, Chen Yu, Kongwen Li, Hong Xia
Photographs: Shixian Feng, Lian He
2018
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Project Overview
Located in northwest Beijing, the Tianyun Affordable Office Landscape organizes a 6,100 m² courtyard between four office towers around a single performative gesture: a central skylight, nicknamed "the City Eye," that is as iconic as it is functional. The design was developed with ARPPA Design Studio and Praxis d'Architecture.
The Skylight Courtyard
The architectural layout offered a central courtyard, which became the opportunity to organize the whole outdoor program around a massive skylight. Its curving form echoes the wave-like facades of the surrounding towers, reinforcing the fluid, organic language of the buildings above. Below, the skylight doubles as a natural light source for the employees' canteen in the complex's basement, while above ground it becomes the organizing device for pedestrian flow, seating platforms, and greenery across the courtyard.
Water and Sustainability
Beneath its landscaped surface, the courtyard runs a constructed wetland system: greywater collected from the two northern buildings is filtered through three terraced planting beds of increasing treatment before reaching a fish pond, arriving clean enough to support aquatic life. The system turns everyday building wastewater into the courtyard's water feature, folding sustainability directly into the landscape's form rather than treating it as a separate technical layer.
A selection of endemic greenery reduces maintenance while providing pleasant seasonal changes in scenery throughout the year.