The project aims to create the Centre, physical and symbolic, for the community (students and teachers) of the Shantou University campus.
It is part of the master plan drawn by Herzog & de Meuron, positioned between the central park of the campus and the hills beyond.
The Centre aims to create a “physical Facebook space”, where students and teachers can re-locate in an area of “de-compression” from work and study, but feel united by common interests and values belonging to the same state of research.
The complex consists of a large square that opens onto the central park in front.
The square fits the auditorium which can undertake different configurations through vertical movable panels, so that the auditorium can completely open itself on all four sides, becoming the stage of a larger open-air theatre that finds in the square a wider orchestra.
The volume of the auditorium includes a solar kaleidoscope as a stage device.
In succession with the auditorium, the project provides both the teachers and students with new housing units.
The facades of the auditorium and the residential buildings are all designed with the same concept, but with different degrees of porosity and transparency depending on their particular features.