Outdoor Room / Beijing
Beijing Olympic Park Administration Committee
Plaza Pavilion
2013 / 5,000 sq. ft.

The Outdoor Room is a pavilion in Beijing’s iconic Olympic Park, which has been massively underutilized since the completion of the 2008 Summer Games. The project aims to transform the experience of this vast expanse of land with an engaging collective moment while, at the same time, visualizing China’s increasing air quality problems.



Awards: Winner, 2019 Emerging Voices Award
Winner, 2017-18 NEA US-Japan Program
Winner, 2016-17 Founders Rome Prize
Winner, 2013 5th China International Architectural Biennial Competition




The Outdoor Room is a pavilion in Beijing’s iconic Olympic Park, which has been massively underutilized since the completion of the 2008 Summer Games. The project aims to transform the experience of this vast expanse of land with an engaging collective moment while, at the same time, visualizing China’s increasing air quality problems.




The Outdoor Room is in dialogue with the surrounding environment; acting as a barometer of the city’s air quality. Through the large, elliptical roof opening, views of the city continually materialize and dissolve in the sky. On clear days, this void frames the Olympic Observation Tower and beyond to the National Stadium. On other days, these landmarks disappear from sight; swallowed by thick smog. On the interior, the colors produced by the pollution — mottled blues, greys and yellows — are reflected and diffused by panels of translucent fabric. Outdoor Room renders the atmosphere into a mutating spectacle of the changing colors of the sky.



Press:
Landscape World (August 2015)
World Architecture News  (November 2013)
The Architect's Newspaper (November 2013)

Project Team: Phu Hoang, Rachely Rotem, Amanda Morgan, Xinran Ma, Yuri Jeong, Hugo Santibanez, Demar Jones, Emanuel Admassu, Chad Murphy

Credits: Arup (Structural Engineering, Design), Beijing Institute Of Architectural Design (Structural Engineering, Local), Matthew Niederhauser (Photography)