Ma Yansong blends nature and futuristic design

From a distance, it looks as though a giant spaceship has just landed in the palm tree-dotted streets near downtown Los Angeles.
It could also be a wide-canopied tree or a low passing cloud — but for its Chinese architect Ma Yansong, as long as the building 'sparks curiosity', he's achieved his purpose.
Over the past two decades, Ma has created dozens of striking projects in his home country and abroad, integrating nature with sleek, modern designs.
His newest project, opening on September 22, is the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, founded by 'Star Wars' creator George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson.
'The building takes on a futuristic feel that generates excitement', Ma said at the Beijing office of MAD Architects, the firm he established in 2004.
'When people visit the Lucas Museum, they will each bring their own unique perspectives', said the 50-year-old.

'They might catch a beam of light, see it cutting through the building, glimpse the clouds, the sky, or even the cosmos'.
'This sparks curiosity and new ideas — and those diverse thoughts are incredibly valuable'.
A Beijing native, he grew up in a courtyard house typical of the 'hutong' alleyways that crisscross the historic centre of China's capital city.
'There was a very close connection to nature', he said, recalling the trees and small pockets of open space interspersed in hutong neighbourhoods.
Later, he went overseas to train as an architect, graduating from the Yale School of Architecture and working briefly at the studio of Iraqi-British designer Zaha Hadid.
Ma's architectural vision draws inspiration from traditional Chinese paintings known as 'shanshui', or 'mountains and water', usually depicting natural scenery.
The Lucas Museum is interwoven with its external environment by lawns, trees, running water and a roof covered in vegetation and solar panels.

'If you look at a Chinese garden, it is a completely natural environment, even though it is artificially designed', Ma said.
'There is a global conversation (now) about ecology and how to bring people closer to nature, yet I find that traditional Eastern architecture mastered this long ago', he said.
Ma said that he embraces what he calls a 'major shift' in architecture towards placing people, rather than the buildings themselves, at the centre of the design concept.
'We aren't using architecture to flaunt wealth or power', he said.
Ma said when he designs a building he wants to make sure it gives 'freedom of movement' to residents — a concept which drove his design of the Baiziwan Social Housing project in Beijing, a subsidised residential compound for low-income communities.
Unlike the closed apartments that have sprung up in Chinese cities during decades of urbanisation, Baiziwan features an open layout with a garden level and a design that optimises sunlight.
Ma said he doesn't want his buildings 'to be a palace or a temple-like structure that demands reverence'.
'I want it to be open, a place where everyone feels they are the masters of the city'. — AFP