Minzhong - New Realms of Publics.

Wuhan, China

Can a boundary become a meeting place?

Along Wuhan’s Zhongshan Avenue, the historic Minzhong building presents a busy commercial face to the city. Behind it, a residential neighbourhood follows a different daily rhythm. This project begins with the distance between those two worlds, proposing a sequence of entrances, markets, courtyards, and public routes through which they can meet.

Rendering of people meeting along a planted upper walkway, with curved red walls and views between levels — Minzhong / Where paths meet
A shared route becomes a place to pause. Planting, seating, and openings between levels give everyday encounters a setting within the building.

01 / Two sides

One landmark. Two urban lives.

The 2022 site study found a sharp contrast between the visitor-facing avenue and the homes of working residents behind the historic building. Large volumes and closed ground-floor edges restricted movement between them. Mapping these boundaries shifts attention from the landmark alone to the streets, entrances, and public spaces around it: where can people cross, and where does the city stop being accessible?

Urban map with red hard boundaries, public spaces, blocked circulation, and four diagrams of different street-edge conditions — Reading the edge / Boundaries and open space
The map traces hard and permeable edges around the site. The four studies below isolate the spatial conditions that interrupt movement, making access the starting point for the proposal.

02 / Opening the edge

Make an entrance into a public place.

The proposal brings routes and landscape into the building through sunken entrances, a central square, and smaller courtyards. Studies of the existing theatre, market, and circulation inform the new arrangement. An entrance can lead into a place to gather; a passage can pass alongside an event. These connections extend the experience of the street into the interior.

Plan showing new curved spaces, courtyards, entrances, and landscape in relation to the existing Minzhong building and surrounding streets — At ground level / Connecting the edges
Read the entrances together with the surrounding streets and planted spaces. The plan situates the intervention between the historic building and the neighbouring urban fabric.

Diagram comparing theatre, market, circulation, and square programmes with transformations of their spatial organisation — Programme + movement
The studies translate the spatial relationships of theatre, market, and square into new combinations of routes and open volumes. Programme and circulation develop together.

View into an open courtyard between red walls and glazed galleries, with a bridge and structural frame overhead — A courtyard / A place to pause
The courtyard offers a quieter interval within the circulation network. Openings between levels connect the spaces around it while leaving room for stillness.

The market is where the routes overlap.

03 / Crossing paths

Different journeys. Common ground.

A visitor can descend from the street into the sunken plaza, then move upward toward the market. Residents arrive through connections to the neighbourhood, bringing everyday shopping into the same sequence. The circulation diagram distinguishes these journeys and shows where they converge. Below-ground links and an upper bridge extend the network across levels, giving public space a vertical dimension.

Long sectional perspective showing the sunken public spaces, stairs, upper volumes, and bridge alongside the historic building — In section / Public space across levels
The section reveals the continuity between the street, lower plaza, market spaces, and upper connections. The design uses changes in level to bring routes through the site.

Exploded circulation diagram with black resident routes and red dotted visitor routes connecting a bridge, entrance, community centre, market, and urban plaza — Residents + visitors / Two routes through one place
Black lines follow residents; dotted red lines follow visitors. Their intersections locate the shared spaces within a sequence of distinct destinations, from the urban plaza to the upper bridge.

People standing and sitting beside planting along a red-walled walkway with openings to adjacent spaces — At the crossing / Room to stay
The perspective brings the circulation study back to the scale of a person. A seat, a view, and a planted edge turn part of the route into a possible meeting place.

04 / A new urban edge

Give the new edge depth.

Three separate volumes respond to the grain of the neighbouring residential fabric. A steel frame and tensioned cables support the proposal’s curved upper forms, establishing a visible edge alongside the historic building. Entrances, passages, and the plaza occupy that edge at different heights. The structure gives the intervention a presence in the city while its openings invite movement through it.

Detailed axonometric drawing of a steel frame, tension cables, curved upper volumes, stairs, and public spaces below — Frame + suspended volumes
The axonometric drawing explains the proposed relationship between the frame, cables, occupied volumes, and routes below. Structure and public space are considered in the same drawing.

Physical model showing a line of framed curved volumes in front of the taller existing urban fabric — Against the existing city
The model places the repeated frame and divided volumes in their urban setting. The new edge is articulated through smaller parts and the spaces between them.

Access / Encounter / Public life

Let daily life cross the boundary.

Minzhong proposes public space where separate urban routines can overlap. A market, a courtyard, and a route through the building give residents and visitors reasons to share the same ground.

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Location: Wuhan, China
Studio: Studio project
Instructor: Zhe Dong
Collaboration: Individual
Area: 6,580㎡

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