7 minute read
Moonlit Forest
At the heart of Xi’an’s bold new Cultural Centre Business District, a nocturnal wonderland has been created by Speirs Major Light Architecture, who drew on biophilic principles and natural light-play to create a rich, immersive nighttime journey.
Visitors arriving after dark at the new Xi'an Centre Culture Business District (CCBD) are invited to take a walk in a forest in an experience created by renowned lighting design studio Speirs Major Light Architecture (SMLA).
Drawing on biophilic design principles, the studio’s artful balance of light and shadow reveals and enhances the natural textures, patterns and material qualities of the architecture and landscape.
A series of magical luminous moments contribute to a new and unexpected sensory experience for the night, inspired by the way shafts of moonlight reveal treasures on the forest floor.
The CCBD district is a new 155,000m² development designed by Heatherwick Studio, blending a retail podium with walkable streets, terraces and open plazas, offices, apartments, accommodation, green spaces, and a vertical park – the Xi'an Tree. While the overall scale and ambition of the development is remarkable, there is also an immense richness in the materials and details at the human scale.
‘The holistic view of Xi’an CCBD is undeniably striking, but the more we delved into the project, the more we understood that the micro experience is what sets this project apart,’ says Keith Bradshaw, Senior Partner and CEO at SMLA.
‘Heatherwick’s attention to the materials and detailing creates a series of human touchpoints that are very special and personal. We were inspired to think about how we could enrich and expand on this concept for the nighttime experience, drawing attention to the handcrafted materials, and creating surprising and engaging moments of magic that draw on the language of light in a forest.
As night falls, warm, soft light reveals the curving rooflines and columns, drawing out the texture of the Terracotta-inspired ceramic cladding. Across façades, streets, and terraces, SMLA’s design balances light levels to make the site easy to navigate—while letting the retail spaces shine.
Bradshaw continues: ‘A development of this scale has the potential to feel overwhelming, especially after dark. It was important to us that it felt welcoming and natural – a place of calm counterpoint to the dense clustering of tower blocks nearby, offering people the space to breathe.
We grazed light across key forms and surfaces, picking up the naturally irregular organic qualities and rich colours of the cladding materials. We interspersed this with deliberate pockets of shadow to create contrast, which helps to make the key routes and features clear, while enveloping visitors in a soft ambient glow.’
At the heart of the district stands the Xi’an Tree, the central landmark and natural gathering place. Inspired by the ancient ginkgo at Xi’an’s Old Guanyin Temple, it invites visitors to ascend 57 meters through a series of cascading gardens that echo the biomes of the Silk Route, from alpine tundra to dry steppe, before reaching a panoramic city-viewing platform.
‘A development of this scale has the potential to feel overwhelming, especially after dark. It was important to us that it felt welcoming and natural – a place of calm counterpoint to the dense clustering of tower blocks nearby, offering people the space to breathe’
— Keith Bradshaw, Senior Partner and CEO at SMLA
To shape a high-impact external visual identity, SMLA integrated bespoke light 'seeds' into the structure –integrated flood light details that skim warm light across the underside of the "petals', revealing their sculptural form.
As visitors ascend the tree, low-level textured lighting highlights the shifting foliage while keeping views open and uninterrupted. Warm light integrated into the wooden stairs and central column brings out the richness of the materials and ensures a safe, welcoming path. At the base, small round lights float in the water like glowing lilies—quiet moments of magic to ground the experience.
Associate Partner Benz Roos explains: ‘We explored how light could contribute to a new experience of the Xi'an tree for the nighttime, bringing attention to aspects of foliage and plants that people might overlook during the day, such as form, texture and tone, amplifying these qualities with added dappled shadow.
‘To deliver the effect we wanted at a miniature scale, we created tiny bespoke 'flower lights’, using patterned filters to bring texture to pathways and planting areas and a specific colour profile tuned to render the vegetation at its best, while blending naturally with the architectural lighting’.
Inside, SMLA’s lighting design continues the focus on emphasising the organic forms and material qualities of the architecture.
Huge skylights take the form of outsized leaf skeletons, their structural 'veins' appearing in soft silhouette by day. By night, bathed in SMLA's concealed integrated lighting, they glow as if held up to the light of the moon.
Up on the first-floor podium roof gardens, the same structures appear to erupt from the ground, taking the form of stunning pod-shaped curved lanterns.
In the gardens, another delightful lit feature bears closer inspection. Playfully scattered across the landscape, a series of bespoke glowing circular inground luminaires feature a ginkgo leaf motif.
The lift lobbies and bathrooms feature textured panel cladding that evokes rough-hewn stone embedded with plant textures. The lighting for this area is deliberately non-uniform, with downlights placed to create irregular areas of brightness and shade, which boosts visual interest and amplifies the organic qualities.
PROJECT CREDITS
Client: CR Land
Architect: Heatherwick Studio
Lighting Design: Speirs Major Light
Architecture – Keith Bradshaw, Benz Roos, Bruno Leung, Keerthigan Thavaseelan, Gordon Chan
Executive Lighting Design: HDA
Photography: HDA
