2023 Best of Year Winner for Transportation

Transit riders on a recently opened subway line in Shenzhen, China, got a whole lot more than a new way to get from point A to point B. Working with the Guangshou Academy of Fine Arts on the 300,000-square-foot project, Vantree Design incorporated an abstracted representation of the landscape, neighborhood character, or cultural characteristics of the aboveground locale at each station for Shenzhen Metro Line 16. In one, a rocky creek bed inspired the bronze-toned faceted crystals that appear to tumble across the ceiling composed of white triangular panels. In another, a wandering dragon motif incorporates ceiling elements that evoke the animal’s scales. In yet another, a circular sunken plaza ringed by columns is a riff on a Hakka saying about green lotus trees swaying around a house.

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PROJECT TEAM

vantree design: minxi cai; junjie li; Guanbao Ye; shangzhao yang; xiaofeng li; xingchen song; dongming shen; dejun li; jiajun yin; zhuohui hu; qinshuang yang; damian chan; liu tao; songjun chen; jinge li, weijun su.

Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts: muchuan xu.