Education Outpost

Badain Jaran Desert, China

Dune Outpost is a desert education complex located in Badain Jaran Desert, China. The complex consists of a series of pod modules that make up an exhibition hall/ auditorium, interior and exterior classrooms, ecology laboratories, site observation platforms, and a café connected by corridors and elevators.

The design strategy of Dune Outpost focuses on the natural forces of the unique landscape and the conversation between the built and landscape, while driven by tectonic strategies of the rhythm and the curation of pictureframes — both accessible and perceptional.

The architecture of Dune Outpost is completed by nature over time. When constructed, the complex is largely aboveground. However, as time passes, sand carried by the north-western gradually shapes the architecture and ultimately drowns it completely in sand. The central pod is designed to absorb and retain moisture, therefore allowing sand to accumulate, ultimately encasing itself in its own dune. The other pods are designed to create wind shadows, manipulating the passing sand to accumulate in front of the pods while creating “scars” behind, thus creating habitable exterior spaces.

As the central pod becomes a sand dune, sand avalanches will produce sand booms — a powerful droning sound produced by the electromagnetic field of deep layers of sand. As the central pod is buried deeper in sand, visitors will be able to experience the boom surrounding them from within the auditorium.

Essentially, Dune Outpost is an architecture designed to be un-constructed by nature. And when it is completely erased from the surface of the Earth, Dune Outpost becomes a sarcophagus of the knowledge human discovers about the desert inside it during its lifetime.