Firm： Martha Schwartz Partners

Type： Commercial › Exhibition Center Pop-Up Showroom Cultural › Cultural Center Landscape + Planning › Private Garden Public Park Urban Green Space

STATUS： Built

YEAR： 2018

SIZE： 25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft

BUDGET： Undisclosed

With its location in the Xiamen Xiang An district, north of the Xiamen city center, the ‘Times Central’

Development Area is envisioned to become the new central hub of Xiamen, where diverse

crowds of people from different geographies, age groups, and businesses will connect.

To generate enthusiasm and advance sales for the development, the client required that a Sales

Centre be created to introduce the development to the larger community. In addition to communicating

the benefits and design ideology of the future Longfor Xiamen development, the design

had to visually balance the view of the nearby lake with that of the existing building, allow for

ample customer parking, and address circulation challenges with the adjacent street.

An early Chinese poet once described Xiamen as “a city that leans on stones like a flower;

where millions of mountains embrace the sea.”

Symbolizing the act of skimming stones across a calm reflective lake in such a way that creates

ever-increasing ripples, the concept epitomizes how every throw and every bounce signifies

Longfor`s future development. These expanding, concentric ripples radiate outwards across the

site in representation of the thoughts, ideas and philosophies of Longfor moving forward.

At the end of the ripples, there is a calm, reflective lake with a Floating Pavilion. This large and

shallow water feature serves as a mirror for the surrounding building and plants. At one end of

this water feature sits the Floating Pavilion as an iconic sculpture symbolizing the skimming

stone. Accessed by a walkway sunken beneath the lake surface, the Floating Pavilion provides a

quiet and comfortable space in which the client may meet in conversation with their customers.

Originally envisioned as a temporary installation, the client has elected to retain the Demonstration

Zone permanently.