Sanya Farm Lab

Nanfan District of Sanya is transforming into a tropical agriculture scientific research hub. The local government is investing in research on environmental change, land/water scarcity, and food production issues, as well as the growing demand of middle-class Chinese’s desire to return to the natural field and rural area tourism.

The completion of the Nanshan Farm Lab is based on the modern organic agriculture display and the upgrading and evolution of lifestyles. It blurs the traditional boundaries between nature and the city and narrows the distance between technology and life.

The Farm Lab integrates and covers high-tech exhibitions such as agricultural robotics and indoor vertical farming. It brings a brand new “farm-to-table” experience. The wish of the design is to present the advanced technologies in front of the public in real time, highlighting the progress by which agricultural technologies make it into lifestyle and education territory. Its key point is to blur the boundaries between indoors and outdoors, maximizing visitors’ communication and interactions inside and outside the architectural building.

The architecture structure was developed into three steps: first, construct the outdoor public space. Set up an outdoor public space with clear scales and rich levels by strategically combining the four-story functional massing. The cantilever on the second floor creates a semi-outdoor rain shelter for the first floor and a relaxing outdoor public platform for outside dining and children’s playing for the third floor.

Second, knit teh outdoor public spaces together through outdoor circulation. Use a spiral stair and huge stairs of the multi-functional theatre to connect the indoor and outdoor, which makes the flow more frequently to go outside and finally achieved the thorough connection.

Third, enhanced the comfort level of outdoor space. The 800-mm-deep roof grid structure reduces the sunlight absorption by 70%. It provides a shelter for the outdoor platform, and at the same time ensures natural ventilation and an open view. The grid structure is inspired by the traditional house of Hainan Li nationality, which is a modern performance of the long-established architecture context.