Accidental Museums (article for Urbane February 2008 edition, edited by Alex Pasternack)

If the center of Beijing is defined by a dense network of delightful old alleyway housing, the periphery is replete with new residential compounds. The very worst of these projects (and there are frankly too many of them out there) work with a basic economic concept. Design a single tower to maximize units. Multiply it as much as possible. Turn the leftover space into a landscaped garden. Cap it off with a big neon sign displaying the telephone number on the roof. 

Typically, there is very little room for architectural experimentation within the residential buildings themselves—the game is really to squeeze the most profit out of them. However, there always seems to be one mysterious centerpiece that seems to follow a different architectural language—and often it is quite beautifully designed. This is the sales pavilion.

For residential projects in other parts of the world, the developer usually turns one unit into a sales "show suite." In China, due to lightning-fast schedules, a pavilion is required to attract potential buyers from the street, to exhibit the vision of the project, and, ultimately, to sell units.

"It's really interesting, this time-dependent notion," notes Oliver Lang, an architect at the Vancouver-based practice LWPAC, who designed a pavilion resembling a floating glass box near the 5th ring road. "You start on a huge empty field and you put a little pavilion on it. People go there and start thinking about their future. Then, the community around it grows—five hundred families, a thousand, two thousand. Then, when the whole thing is sold, you have to provide the first amenity."

The sales pavilion automatically serves as this first public space that catalyzes the community. No longer required as a sales office, it is re-appropriated for other functions. Mr. Lang's project, in fact, had a matrix of scenarios. The spaces have been used successfully for all types of uses, from a lecture hall to a teahouse to an exhibition space. It also needed innovative detailing because after two years, it had to be dismantled and reassembled in another location, making room for a future school. 

URBANUS, a Chinese architectural practice that has designed several pavilions, used the flexibility of the project type to experiment with space, playing with form, materiality, and panoramic views. Now, after all the units are sold, they serve as pristine spaces for art galleries.

It is almost unthinkable for a profit-driven developer to have the kind of budget for a cultural program within a residential project. However, by cleverly playing off of the sales process, architectural firms like LWPAC and URBANUS have created, in effect, accidental museums. For their part, the real estate developers get some nice architecture—and a way to pay for it too.