Open Nature

We are living in an era of a looming environmental crisis. After 3 decades of unprecedented urban growth in China, we are seeing remarkable prosperity on the surface while facing the worst environmental problems ever seen in history.

OPEN began its practice at this very moment. We see it our mission and responsibility to find the ultimate balance between nature and people. We take the special opportunity at the STREET exhibition in 2011 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture to showcase our hidden yet consistent agenda in a series of recent architectural and urban projects – “building nature or anti-building in the process of building”.

In Chinese, the word “park” is made up of two characters, the first means “public” and the second means “garden”. This series of our work all evolved around these two common threads. More specifically, the relationship among people, and the relationship between people and nature. We are interested in public space that is filled with nature, and nature that is enjoyed by everyone!

In OPEN’s space on the STREET, nature dominates and façade disappears. In an era of architecture dominated by fashion, shapes and images, our answer to the given proposition – the making of a street façade – is actually “Façadeless”. Nature is the space and the façade. The 3 surrounding walls are skinned with polished stainless steel sheets that dematerialize and dissolve the space by reflecting the nature indefinitely. On the surface of these walls 7 selected projects are each showcased by a multimedia presentation and a conceptual model floating on the walls. It is an OPEN Garden on the very special STREET!