Completed in 2020, local architects NC Design and Architecture’s VIP Lounge in a luxury shopping centre at the heart of Hong Kong’s busiest shopping district sent ripples through the industry. Nelson Chow’s (Founder, NCDA) design is a subtle yet striking 200 square metres of undulating curves and organic forms that create an inviting, soothing escape from the outside world.
Chow’s brief – to create a relaxing getaway – is certainly achieved. Taking inspiration from the forms and sensibility of traditional Japanese Zen gardens, the design evokes an airy garden-like yet contemporary landscape comprised of sinuous, cocooning forms and natural materials that is at once comfortingly recognisable and opulently futuristic.
Named ‘The Garden Pavilion’, the project re-invents the concept of a private lounge as a sensual and serene experience whose sculptural design is a paradigm of discrete luxury.
Yatzer.com
The project is comprised of two separate areas, both united by the same ivory colour palette and winding, natural motifs. The first is a ‘sculptured garden’ that is accessible to all visitors, which includes a concierge, florist and exhibition space for seasonal displays; the second is a private VIP pavilion. For Chow, both zones ‘were conceived as an abstract echo of nature’ that draw on curved, flowing forms and ignore a more traditional architectural reliance on linearity. The furniture, most of which was designed especially for the project, follows this same design language and tucks neatly into the space’s rounded silhouettes.
For me, this design is successful on many different levels. Firstly, it is a brilliantly subtle design that is instantly memorable despite its simplicity, both in its use of colour and form. The muted beige, earthy hues are easy – even calming – on the eye, while the natural curved walls, pillars and furniture seem to simply blend into their environment. Unlike the extravagant, sci-fi-esque forms found in many of Zaha Hadid’s designs that immediately grab the viewer’s attention, Chow’s unique shopping getaway is a restful retreat for the mind (and body), that is nonetheless just as striking.
Another impressive element of the Garden Pavilion is its evocation of nature through pure form alone. While many designs seek to create an ‘outside-in’ atmosphere through the use of plants and even whole trees, often to great effect, Chow has managed to create a natural landscape with organic curves and bespoke furniture that could almost have sprung from the ground up. Tables recall overgrown bonsai trees and voluptuous seating areas snake their way around pockets of greenery in perfect harmony with their surroundings.
Despite the Garden Pavilion’s naturalistic interior, the space also feels futuristic. I briefly mentioned this earlier in this post, but I wanted to dwell on this slightly further. For me, the use of organically curved forms in architecture immediately makes a space feel more modern. This is something we are seeing in design more and more, particularly in furniture design and decor which has been dominating design trends for some time. I wonder if this is also a product on continual technological advancement and innovation, which is making the construction of non-linear forms not only possible but incredibly successful, as we see in Chow’s design.
In my own design work, I have found myself increasingly drawn to rounded spaces and imperfect shapes. This has been an area I have been seeking to explore over the past few months, working with undulating forms from windows to product design, as I have been creating spaces for a textile designer client and have been inspired by the the flowing forms fabric creates as well as exploring the architectural properties of fabric to create soft silhouettes in a space. You can read more about this in an upcoming post.
Reflecting on the use of curves and natural shapes in design, it is the overall coherence and continuity of the Garden Pavilion – its oscillating, flowing, enveloping design language, woven from floor to ceiling, at once rich and simplistic – that makes Chow’s shopping centre such a triumph.