The proposed Confucius Centre looks to break with the prevailing approach to development on the campus – that of the ‘pavilion in a landscape’. The proposal seeks to engage in the immediate context so as to create new spaces and reinforce existing routes.

In contrast to the singular, monolithic massing of adjacent structures, the proposed design looks to establish a new model for development, one that is not driven by the
internal geometry of a brief, but by a response to context, in this case, the landscape of the belt-walk, a new and considerable asset to the campus. The proposal looks to create connectivity within the campus by establishing new routes, defining new external spaces, and creating new vistas.

A notional orthogonal volume aligned with the geometry of the Engineering building defines a territory for the Confucius Centre. This volume is carved in response to the
site to form a series of courts and gardens that extend the landscape deep into the building mass and open up views to the lake and landscape beyond.

A deep incision made to the northeastern face of the volume forms an entrance court, while a the removal of a large section to the southeast creates an expansive open
court which addresses the lake and welcomes visitors arriving from the main campus. A section is removed from the core of the volume to ‘trap’ or enclose a portion of landscape which forms a garden at the very heart of the project.