With interiors that look like fluids frozen in time, the sales office for the CIFI Group located in the Nansha district feels like a set from a movie, or better still, like something an AI like Midjourney would create. The building’s fluidic design takes inspiration from its immediate surroundings. Built on an international finance island, the CIFI Group’s office finds itself surrounded by waves that roll back and forth through the day. The building’s design reflects that dynamic fluidity with its unique design that directly pays homage to the water it’s surrounded by. The floor of the entrance is decorated with ripples that disappear as they move out, and large bronze hanging drops from the ceiling give you a sense of time being frozen as water drops downwards into the floor. Meanwhile, an asymmetrical rest bench takes its form from a dolphin’s playful splash. “Each part is artistically related to the element, water”, say the designers.
Designer: 10 Degrees Design
The entrance to the building feels iconic and unreal at the same time. Your eyes first see the desk right in front, but immediately migrate to the two large drops that suspend from the ceiling on the left and the right. As your eyes move lower, you notice that the drops are hovering right above the floor instead of touching it. Where you’d expect them to make contact, happens to be the epicenter of a series of ripples right in the flooring. Once you make your way to the main desk, your eyes see a large spiral hanging installation. Designed to represent how the ocean is calm before breaking out into waves as soon as it approaches the shore, the spiral is relatively straightforward, turning wavy as it reaches the end. The designer extracted elements from these stunning sights around the island and transformed them into interior decorations and sculptures which are interspersed at every corner. “It is hoped that guests can enjoy leisure time in the space where the atmosphere of cities and nature coexist harmoniously,” say the architects at 10 Degrees Design.
This project began in Guangzhou, China in January 2021 and was finished by June of the same year. It was then made available to the public in June 2021.
The CIFI Nansha Sales Office is a winner of the A’ Design Award for the year 2022.
