Situated on the top floor of a commercial building, ARK is a premier medical aesthetics pharmaceutical corporate club. This space is designed to showcase corporate strength, display flagship products, and entertain guests, all while providing an immersive experience that transcends the present and ventures into the future.
Rejuvenated and Everlasting Life
Designer Michael Chen, lead architect of VGC Design, started working on the “Ark” project in 2022. During that special lockdown, he fused his many thoughts on life and destiny into the project’s conception.
Human imagination of the universe is based on the exploration and thinking of our own existence. The lifespan is constrained by time, which is a fundamental law of the universe. Therefore, it is a lifelong quest for humanity to slow the wear and tear of time in life effectively. In this project, the designer adopted “time and life” as the theme and created a transcendent space. Like an ark carrying the strength of life, it floats in the river of time and space, waiting for people to board, get rejuvenated, and sustain life.
Femtosecond Hall – Listening to the frequency of the moment
“Seconds” are the pulse of time, beating in the boundless sky. The “Second Ring” installation in the lobby shines backwards, with the “Waterfall of Light” symbolizing the reverse of time and space. The intertwining of the “Second Ring” with stainless steel columns presents a dynamic scene, with waterfall-like light and shadows echoing the ring, creating a tangible sense of time’s passage.
Temple of Time – Touch the pulsation of time
“All matter originates from a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds them together. Behind this force exists a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”
The entire space is constructed with various types of circles, forming a field in physics. The curved stainless steel wall panels reflect light, injecting flowing energy into the space. When touched with fingers, the LED screens display different visual effects and change with different angles of observation, allowing deeper interactions between viewers and the space. This space emphasizes human presence despite the modern technological ambience.
Starlight Hall – Looking up at the brilliant sky
The side glass walls present the traditional cosmology of “round heaven and square earth”. The black stone floor creates a profound effect reminiscent of the earth through the reflection and projection of lights. Breaking traditional furniture forms, the designer arranges the tables in the multifunctional hall in the form of scattered planets. Mobile tables and chairs can move like planets, changing the layout of the space for meetings, entertainment and other functions, thus offering guests a unique experience.
Ethereal Hall – Enjoying the exquisite delicacies
Besides the showcasing exhibition hall, there is also a welcoming reception area. Inspired by the Song Dynasty practice of “watching the meal” to stimulate appetite, the dining table here shows “magnificence,” allowing guests to feel “the greatest of life, from the micro to the macro.” Honeycomb mirror panels expand the space, providing a celestial dining experience.
Fang Yuan – Sitting and watching the breath of the plants
Shunmyo Masuno once said: “We need to find out the contemporary nature of gardens, always be contemporary and even ahead of the time.”
The white surface and ground of the architecture are particularly prominent against the dark sky. Streamlined white strips go through the outdoors, like star trails left when passing through a wormhole. Carefully selected and arranged plants evoke a vivid sense of alien planets and the future. How precious it is that the“Ark” owns this “Fang Yuan”! It connects the interior and exterior, sailing through the past and into the future.
Location: Chengdu, China
Area: 800 sqm
Interior and Architecture design: VGC Design
Chief Designer: Michael Chen
Detailed designer: Ding Fei
Project Management: Wen Ming
Project construction: Zhejiang Construction Decoration Group Co., Ltd.
Structural design: Luanlu Structure
Landscape design: Parallel Vision Landscape Studio, Michael Chen
Soft decoration design: VGC Design, Qianmo Design
Lighting design: Artluci*Owen
Visual identity: SAC Design
Installation Art: Green Knight
Photo credits: Yu Space Photography, Liu Wei
VGC Design
Founded in 2010, the VGC brand has set up companies in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu and Wenzhouso far. With the concept of integrating behavior, aesthetics and soul in one, it quickly became the most potential comprehensive design team in China in 2017. Upholding the professional spirit of “Designing with Detail in Mind”, the VGC design team combines business with art to comprehensively enhance the taste and value for customer’s projects. Mr. Michael Chen, Co-Founder of VGC Design (Chengdu) Company, with a design concept of “starting from the mind and body, and summing up some mental skills and ideas through tempering and practice in the world to create from scratch”, has dedicated to real estate and hotel design for more than 10 years and won multiple prestigious awards home and abroad for his works.
