Architects: Neri&Hu Design and Research Office
Area: 4631 m²
Year: 2025
Photographs: DONG Image, Runzi Zhu
Consultants: Zhongdi Design Group Co., Ltd.
Lighting: Linea Light (China) Co., Ltd., Hangzhou ROLEDS Technology Co., Ltd.
Partners In Charge: Lyndon Neri, Rossana Hu
Associate In Charge: Zhao Lei
Design Team: Ivy Feng, Wenbo Da, Christine Chang, Siyu Chen, Susana Sanglas, Feiteng Feng, Haiou Xin, Ziyang Lin, Lyuqitiao Wang, Greg Wu
Interior Design: Neri&Hu Design and Research Office
Client: Dalian Chuanshi Yiju Business Management Co., Ltd. – The Yard
General Contractor: Dalian Qian Sheng Feng Design Engineering Co., Ltd.
City: Dalian
Country: China
The Yard, creative development by Neri&Hu Design and Research Office in Dalian, China, reclaims a former industrial compound of six mid-20th-century buildings and transforms it into a cohesive mixed-use courtyard for public and student engagement. Through adaptive reuse, the architects reorganize disparate volumes into a unified spatial system defined by new walls, screens, and canopies. Materials like corten steel and exposed masonry express a layered dialogue between past and present. The program integrates offices, retail, cinema, theater, hospitality, and a public library, reviving a formerly introverted site as a local urban destination.
Our core philosophy consistently navigates the delicate tension between human impermanence and our profound need for meaning. This is best encapsulated by a guiding principle for our practice from Saint-Exupéry: “We don’t ask to be eternal beings, but we ask that things do not lose all their meaning.”
Interview with Lyndon Neri & Rossana Hu of Neri&Hu Design and Research Office
This sentiment finds a powerful echo in the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt, particularly her seminal work, The Human Condition. Arendt distinguishes between the transitory life of mortals and the potential for enduring meaning through our creations and actions. This human-made world is meant to be durable; it is to outlast our individual lives and provide a stable context for future generations to appear, act, and remember.
Our work is fundamentally an act of stewardship for this human world.
The Yard is a mixed-use development designed by Neri&Hu Design and Research Office in Dalian, China, adjacent to university campuses and software parks. The project reactivates a compound of six existing structures originally built for a chemical research institute. Dating back forty years, the buildings previously served as warehouses, offices, and dormitories. The architectural strategy addresses the challenge of unifying a collection of volumes with distinct heights and renovated facades. A key structure within the complex is a former dormitory, marked by wooden gates and repair garage stalls, which historically supported the institute’s workers.
The architects approached the site as a hidden enclave within the city, describing it as “a small haven of a soon to be forgotten urban memory.” This conceptual anchor guided the adaptive reuse strategy, which aims to reconnect the site to the surrounding academic and local communities. The project introduces a mixed-use program that includes gallery spaces, lifestyle retail, hospitality venues, cinema, theater, and offices. The former dormitory is now used for office functions, while a small public library near the main entrance adds civic accessibility.
The original U-shaped arrangement of the buildings faced an open parking lot. The intervention completes this layout by enclosing the figure into a courtyard configuration. A new system of walls, canopies, and screens organizes the inner plaza, fostering a stronger sense of spatial enclosure and continuity across the previously fragmented structures.
Drawing on Chinese garden principles, the design reinforces the site’s contemplative atmosphere while creating distance from the surrounding urban density. A central rock installation anchors the courtyard space, while a continuous architectural frame acts as a secondary facade, mediating between existing conditions and new interventions.
Materially, the project maintains a restrained and tactile palette. The existing stucco facades are preserved and contrasted with corten steel, selected for its industrial reference and weathering properties, which visually register the passage of time. Interiors combine new plaster finishes with exposed brick and retained structural elements, establishing a deliberate tension between past and present.
The Yard serves as an example of sensitive adaptive reuse that brings new life to industrial remnants, positioning memory and spatial coherence at the core of its architectural narrative.
Project Gallery
Project Location
Address: No. 201 Huangpu Road, Dalian, China
Location is for general reference and may represent a city or country, not necessarily a precise address.
