Construction has begun on the Bihailou Art Village, a new mixed-use cultural and commercial development in Shatoujiao, near the Shenzhen-Hong Kong border. Designed by MVRDV, the project revisits the firm’s Vertical Village concept, first developed in collaboration with The Why Factory in 2011, translating the idea into a contemporary cultural destination.
Rather than organizing the development as a conventional high-rise block, Bihailou Art Village is conceived as a colorful collection of irregularly stacked “houses.” Each volume is designed around a specific function, creating a distinctive architectural composition while giving different parts of the development their own identity.
Reimagining the Vertical Village
The project’s design draws directly from the Vertical Village concept, which explores how high-density urban environments can retain qualities traditionally associated with low-rise neighborhoods.
At Bihailou Art Village, the approach allows different elements of the program to occupy spaces tailored to their individual requirements. The development brings together a multifunctional theatre, Fish Lantern Museum, retail spaces, restaurants, and other public functions within the stacked arrangement.
Instead of placing these uses inside a single monolithic structure, the architecture breaks them into individual volumes that collectively form a vertical neighborhood.
A Public Route Through the Building
One of the defining features of Bihailou Art Village is its circulation network.
Each “house” has its own entrance, allowing different functions to operate independently and establish their own opening hours. Meanwhile, stairs, escalators, ramps, and elevated walkways weave through the center of the development.
This circulation system is designed as more than a means of moving between floors. It becomes an extension of the project’s public realm, remaining accessible throughout the day and encouraging visitors to explore the building at their own pace.
As visitors move upward, openings between the stacked volumes provide changing views of the surrounding mountains, cityscape, and bay.
Architecture Designed as an Experience
The vertical arrangement creates a sequence of spaces rather than a conventional interior journey.
Visitors can move between cultural, commercial, and public areas while encountering terraces, pathways, and visual connections along the way. Roof terraces become destinations in their own right, offering elevated viewpoints across the surrounding landscape.
This combination of circulation and public space gives the project a strong sense of urban permeability, allowing the building to function more like a compact neighborhood than a traditional enclosed development.
Density with a Human Scale
For MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas, the project represents an opportunity to revisit the ideas behind the original Vertical Village concept while responding to the realities of contemporary urban development.
The design challenges the dominance of large-scale, monolithic towers by proposing an alternative model in which density can coexist with variety, public interaction, and recognizable individual spaces.
The result is an architecture that seeks to humanize high-density development rather than simply maximize floor area.
A New Cultural Destination for Shatoujiao
Located close to the Shenzhen-Hong Kong border, Bihailou Art Village is positioned to become a new cultural and commercial destination within the rapidly evolving urban landscape of the region.
Its combination of cultural venues, retail, restaurants, public circulation, and outdoor terraces creates a diverse program intended to attract visitors throughout the day.
The project’s stacked architecture also gives it a distinctive visual identity, transforming the building itself into an urban landmark.
Revisiting an Idea for the Future City
Bihailou Art Village demonstrates how an architectural concept developed more than a decade ago can be translated into a contemporary built environment.
By stacking individual programmatic volumes while maintaining independent access and interconnected public circulation, MVRDV’s design proposes an alternative approach to urban density—one that combines the efficiency of vertical development with the diversity and accessibility of a neighborhood.
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