Suzhou’s Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University’s new Central Building sits on a grassy plinth, a big horizontally stratified cube with big random holes punched into it. Designed by Andy Wen, Global Design Principal of Aedas, his scheme is a single building for the four university activities of administration, student activities, library and training. It has the student activities in a spreading bermed ground zone on two levels serving as a plinth for the cube which contained the other activities. These are arranged in a quite complicated interlinking of spaces with the chief administrator’s office on one half of the top floor and the library on several floors below.
The cube is penetrated by a series of voids which serve to differentiate and define the internal functions. They also provide light to offices and shape and condition the air as it moves in and up through the voids. They are arranged so that there are none on the north-west elevation because that is the prevailing cold wind during winter. On the opposite side is a long slot halfway down the façade designed to harness the prevailing summer wind, sucking it up through the centre of the building and out through the garden on the roof.
