Architect: Yaohua Wang Architecture
Location: Wutai Mountain, China
Structural Engineer: Organization Group
Program: Viewing tower
Size: 1200 m²
Note: Design proposal

This proposed viewing tower is located on a hiking route which on the west side of Wutai Mountain. It functions as a travelers’ rest station and observation point for the unique natural landscape.

Creating a relationship between the tower and its natural environment drives the design of this tower. A new "hybrid-nature" is orchestrated in the productive contrast the structure and its environment and avoids the false pretension of "blending into nature".

The tower is 26 meters high and covers 205 square meters. The main part of the tower, composed of vertical steel structures, lifts off from the ground. Structural loads are carried by steel members. These steel members are wrapped by five layers of annular horizontal members. Through this snakes a circulatory spine.

The varying relationship between these three systems crafts dynamic outward perspectives and shifting sensations of interiority. Unlike the continuous smoothness we find in natural landscapes, the contrast of structure and circulation are used to create a different a contrasting spatial experience.