“This is a micro-utopian ideal. I hope that these bubbles will serve as vital newborn cells, giving the traditional hutong new life, and revitalizing the community.” – Ma Yansong

On September 24 and 26, 2019, Ma Yansong delivered keynot speeches in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan respectively at the “AICA Modern Architecture Symposium”.

Headquartered in Beijing, this will be the firm’s second office in China, and its fourth in the world.

MAD’s design demonstrates how the built environment can merge with nature through a new urban infrastructure, that while transforming the future of travel, also has the ability to reshape the way we plan and use public space.

Located in Paris’ 17th arrondissement, Clichy-Batignolles is a newly developing area of the city. ‘UNIC’ emerges as part of its mixed-use masterplan and actively enhances relationships within the community, representing the neighbourhood’s evolution.

MAD Architects, led by Ma Yansong, competed against four other global architecture firms, coming out ahead of Arata Isozaki & Associates, Atelier Christian de Portzamparc, GMP, and KDG, to secure the project.

The Centre Pompidou in Paris hosts a year-long exhibition of MAD Architects in France. ‘MAD X’ showcases ten of MAD’s most significant projects to date. “While ‘X’ represents the ten projects that are on show, it also has another meaning – ‘X’ also signifies the ‘unknown’,” says Ma Yansong, Founder and Principal Partner of MAD.

MAD Architects, led by Ma Yansong, releases its design for Terminal 3 of Harbin Taiping International Airport. Referencing the gentle slopes of China’s vast Northern plains, and the region’s immense snow and ice, MAD has conceived a terminal building that echoes the characteristics of Harbin’s geography and climate. Like a snowflake that has gently fallen onto the earth, it creates an architectural poetry that settles into its locale, while simultaneously expressing itself as a surreal, interstellar space of future air travel.

Unlike the pinnacles of conventional towers that typically express very distinct, imposing outlines, ‘East 34th’ expresses a deep-coloured glass curtain-wall façade that slowly fades into a slender and fluid transparent cap, quietly dissolving into the atmosphere.

The Centre Pompidou in Paris has acquired 12 architectural models that represent 10 of the most significant projects by MAD Architects. Each model uniquely exemplifies MAD’s architectural vision, and expresses the firm’s core values which look to envisioning a futuristic architecture that is akin to dream-like earthscapes – one that creates a conversation with nature, the earth, and the sky.

The scheme seeks to restore the spiritual harmony between humanity and nature through the integration of contemplative spaces that, while immersing inhabitants in nature, still meets the conveniences of modern day living.

The commissioning of this platform on top of the Fenix warehouse signifies the first public cultural building in Europe to be designed by a Chinese architecture firm.

MAD’s scheme inserts a new building onto the site of a traditional siheyuan courtyard that dates back to 1725. The design features a dynamic floating roof that surrounds the historic courtyard that, while preserving the cultural heritage of the site, forms a multi-layered urban narrative, where old and new co-exist.

MAD’s design embeds the functions of the sports park within natural forms, creating an earth-art landscape in the center of the city – a poetic scene that falls somewhere between that of Earth and Mars.

MAD Architects, led by Ma Yansong, presents its model for the “home of the future” on the occasion of the 2018 China House Vision Exhibition. “Living Garden”, conceived in partnership with Hanergy, breaks down the boundaries between interior and exterior, giving inhabitants the feeling that they are living in nature.

“Chaoyang Park Plaza” has been nominated for the 2018 Beazley Designs of the Year Award which sees design experts from around the world acknowledge the most innovative and thought-provoking designs from the past 12 months.

MAD’s “Chaoyang Park Plaza” has been selected as one of five finalists in the 2018 International Highrise Award (IHA) ─ the world’s most important architecture prize for highrises.

MAD Architects has completed the restoration of the Kiyotsu Gorge Tunnel in Japan’s Niigata prefecture. The revitalization project sees the installation of several permanent artistic spaces along the historic lookout tunnel, with the intention of bringing back the cultural energy that once empowered the region. The “Tunnel of Light” opened on the occasion of the 2018 Echigo-Tsumari Triennale.

Defying the typical glass, box-like buildings of Melbourne that appear detached from the city’s historic parks and natural local terrain, MAD’s organic design introduces a silhouette of natural forms – mountain, tree, cloud – into the dense city center, offering a distinct and iconic scheme for the skyline, that reconnects citizens with nature.

In 2017, the Chinese Entrepreneur Forum decided to construct a permanent venue for itself, and commissioned MAD Architects, led by Ma Yansong, to design a building that embodies and showcases the ambitions, ideologies and forward critical thinking of CEF members, and the greater entrepreneurial industry in China.

“Gardenhouse” demonstrates MAD’s core design philosophy: to harmoniously interweave nature, humanity and the built environment in our high-density cities.

The 2018 MAD Travel Fellowship winners have been selected. This 9th edition will support six architecture students from across the globe, and grant them the opportunity to travel to the destination of their choice, in order to gain further insights into their architecture topics of research.

The 2018 “MAD Travel Fellowship” is open to students across the globe.