Cuisine Carnival Chengdu, China

ambitious tourism-focused masterplan

The Cuisine Carnival project is part of an ambitious tourism masterplan development to the north of Chengdu. The immediate site context for this unique building type is topographically diverse and fluid.

Our concept sought to embrace and celebrate this openness and fluidity whilst providing an appropriate level of integrated, flexible planning in response to the functional brief to provide 20,000sq.m of catering, conference and events spaces that reflect the stature of Chengdu as a centre of culinary excellence. There is a subtle variety to the appearance of the building’s form as viewed from around the site and within the building itself, intended to challenge perceptions about a building’s outside – inside relationship.

It may be argued that our design has sacrificed a degree of rationale in the pursuit of a uniquely contextual response. Properly planned, a largely rectilinear box type concept might offer greater flexibility and adaptability. However, we believe that such a response would be disrespectful to the very qualities that make the brief, the site and, by extension, Chengdu itself so unique.