2025 | Professional

MUSE Design Awards Platinum Winner

Nightscape Lighting Design of Nanhu Square in Quzhou

Entrant Company

Zhejiang Province Institute of Architectural Design and Research Co.,Ltd.(ZIAD)

Category

Lighting Design - Architectural Lighting

Client's Name

Weikai Zhu

Country / Region

China

Spanning 165,000㎡ along Quzhou's South Lake, this architectural ensemble reinterprets Confucian cosmology through cutting-edge lighting technology. The dual inclined volumes—evoking both ceremonial bows and ancient bamboo scrolls—are clad in 30,000 parametrically-designed perforated aluminum panels. These dynamic canvases transition seamlessly: daylight reveals a rippling Qianjiang River illusion through gradient apertures, while 8,000 programmable LEDs transform the façade into a celestial library after dark, projecting Analects excerpts as constellations over the lake.

The 18m hydraulic theater forms the luminous core, its 5m³/s water curtain merging holography with Song Dynasty poetry, where Xin Qiji's verses materialize within mist-shrouded landscapes. Three subterranean cultural vessels complete the narrative: AR-enhanced museum galleries resurrect the Kong Clan's southern lineage, 128 prismatic glass bricks in the spiral exhibition hall choreograph light according to "Heaven-Round-Earth-Square" philosophy, while the land-art zone mediates between contemporary creation and terroir memory.

By encoding rammed-earth textures into parametric metalwork and translating classical texts into luminous code, the project achieves a 43% energy reduction versus conventional systems. Nightly thermal imaging confirms its success: crowds linger 2.3x longer under the algorithmic starlight, witnessing how steel and photons can recompose a city's cultural DNA.

Credits

Design Director
Weikai Zhu
Architecture designer
Jun Zheng
Lighting Designer
Peng Zhou
Architecture designer
Xin Ye
Lighting Designer
Qi Lu
Lighting Designer
Jia Chen
Lighting Designer
Hongliang Wang
Lighting Designer
Linyue Shen
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