1.An intriguing question

“What could a utility building in a green park look like?”   In the noisy summer of 2019 with cicadas chirping,  I was asked this intriguing question.

The inquisitor was Mr. Liu Zili, Chairman of Taowenlv, owner of the Jingdezhen Ceramic Art Ave Taoxichuan. Since 2012, he invited Professor Zhang Jie’s team from Tsinghua University to lead the preservation and renovation planning. Once the state-owned Cosmos Ceramics Factory and Ceramic Machinery Factory, Taoxichuan has since transformed into a national cultural industry and innovative entrepreneurship model zone, a nighttime tourist destination, and a street packed with intangible cultural heritage. It serves as a stage for many artists and creators who have migrated to Jingdezhen.

Back in 2019, the first phase of Taoxichuan had just been unveiled, but many areas were still under development. The existing infrastructure was strained, with insufficient electrical capacity and water pressure for the upper floors. Infrastructure had to catch up to the site’s growing ambition.

Initially, the client wanted to minimize the visual impact of scattered utility units. After a series of technical evaluations and energy-saving optimizations, they decided to build a centralized energy center to provide heating, cooling, water pressure, and electricity for the expanded campus, while also managing energy efficiency and fire safety across the site.

The energy center would be located on a vacant lot, which would be excavated to construct an underground parking lot connected to nearby hotels. This construction would be integrated with the laying of heating and cooling pipelines and smart network. Once complete, it would be re-covered with greenery, restored to a green park.

Back to the question: what could a utility building in a green park look like?

2.Split in Two

An energy station, often referred to a utility building, is not a place where you will host a party. It usually consists of a fire water tank, pumps, boilers, refrigeration units, substation, and control center, all enclosed in a big box with massive cooling towers sitting on top,  surrounded by louver screens.

A skillful architect could come up many ways to “dress up” such a box. But what intrigued me was whether there was a way to meet the functional needs of the energy center while maximizing the open space in the park.

We divided the building into two parts: the cooling units, power distribution, boiler room, and fire water tank are buried underground, blending into the landscape as a grassy slope like tearing up a corner of the lawn;  seven massive cooling towers and control center were suspended above, forming a wedge shape.

Although the building interior is still closed for the public, by splitting the volume, it returns the space to the park, which would be otherwise occupied by the building footprint. On hot summer days, the large "canopy" created by the structure became a welcome, shaded space for relaxation—and a natural viewing platform for whatever fun was happening in the park.

The north elevation along the street, has bold, strait industrial features, exposing the real equipment and pipes like a massive machine. On the park-facing side, however, the building looks softer, lighter and more organic, with two curved “eyes”—— the control center and a meeting room, both created using the internal space of the truss structure.

We envisioned hanging wind-driven scales under the suspended structure as a finishing touch. These scales would ripple in the breeze, turning the structure into an art installation—a mechanical cloud floating above the grass. That’s how it got the name "Cloud Engine."

3.Blending in Context

As a member of the Taoxichuan architecture cluster, Cloud Engine is distinctive but getting well with its surroundings.

When the schematic design of Cloud Engine was delivered, the west neighbour project Jingyang Camphor Court by Vector Architects has just begun. Occasionally I saw their rendering of a nice peaceful courtyard in a design meeting, it suddenly hits my mind: If a hulking metal machine peeking out in this scene, they must freak out.

In order to perfectly avoid the Cloud Engine being visible from that lovely courtyard, we shifted the entire building north and adjusted the plan’s angle preciously. This tweak also sharpened the building’s form, enhancing the dramatic perspective.

At the lobby of the Guomao Hotel on the south site, we use the landscape terrain as a barrier to control the view. It helps keeping the Cloud Engine’s dramatic presence within the grassy area, and not aggressive or even hidden from surrounding buildings’ perspective.

4.Technology and Aesthetics:

An energy center starts with the equipment, and then comes the building. The cooling system includes three 2200RT and one 1100RT variable-frequency centrifugal chillers, paired with seven large cooling towers. For heating, there are three 5.6MW gas hot water boilers, plus two 1.4MW gas boilers for daily-use hot water. These technical specs became the foundation for the design.

We tailored the building’s grid to accommodate the equipment and carefully routed the pipes, ensuring the space met all operational needs. This required precise coordination between the architectural, structural, and mechanical systems, all made possible through our collaboration with China IPPR team. We built parametric models to simulate how adjustments would affect the overall design, and even conducted wind tunnel tests.

The equipment’s technical logic has a beauty of its own, but in traditional architectural practice, this beauty is either hidden in shafts, ceilings and louvers, or, simply imitated by the interior designers, referring to “industrial style.”

In this project, we aimed to showcase the beauty of the equipment, integrating it with the architecture to present a cohesive mechanical aesthetic. In the facade details, we used both Chinese and English labels to mark the functions: for instance, "Cold" is carved on the cold water pipes, and "Repair" is engraved on the maintenance access — so that the building’s detailing reads like an operational manual.

5.A Step Away from Perfection

Since 2019 , the project went through many ups and downs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Especially during the crucial stage of exterior construction, remote collaboration was significant challenging. Despite the responsible efforts of the client and EPC team, and most of the design intention were achieved, eventually the wind-driven scales at the bottom were not installed for various reasons.

I personally climbed the frame several times to test prototypes of the scales and their lighting effects. To better document the tolerances of the bottom keels, we conducted a 3D scan, and the data collected will serve as a critical foundation for potential installation  in the future..

Unfortunately, the “mechanical cloud” floating above the grass slope remains unfinished, this building is one step away from an installation art piece. But I remain hopeful—perhaps one day, , by any event opportunities, the scales might be installed, and this cloud will finally catch the wind.

6.Designing Extraordinary Future Daily Life

It reminds in distant past of 2010, I was working in BIG and participated in a competition for a waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen, which people could ski on the roof.

It was a bold and unusual idea. After winning the competition, during the celebratory drinks, someone said, “It may seem incredible now, but in a few years, our kids will think skiing on a waste-to-energy plant is the most normal thing.”

After I left Denmark, the project took another eight years to made real, but the most playful idea of  “CO2 smoke rings” was never realized.

Sometimes, unfulfilled potential is the price of innovation. That’s what makes design so challenging and fascinating: rethink the current, turning today’s extraordinary into tomorrow’s daily life. It keeps me motivated ever since.