Numerous undulating Wood-Like Aluminium Panels wrap the whole interior of a neighborhood center in Shanghai bring local community together and create a warm and sincere atmosphere. 

Called Underground Forest, Wutopia Lab's project is designed as the last part of Onepark Gubei community club, which has already completed other spaces such as fitness, yoga, SPA, swimming pool, coffee, children's playground. 

The developer wanted to create a more like "socialised" space, focusing on how to use buildings as a tool, to activate the meaning of community centers under the condition of restrictive internal open, and to further promote the communication of neighborhoods

The two-storey building, covering a total of 1,000-square-metre space, consists of conference room, reading room, children's library, gallery and audio-visual room. Situated in Onepark Gubei - a high-end residential district and a fertile place in Shanghai - visitors enter the building with a huge wood-covered staircase that can also be used as a public space to select and take a quick glance at the books.

The architects wanted to create the idea of the free reading and art scene throughout the interior space. They were commissioned to redesign the project which had already started construction. In the specific implementation, the architects use the most reasonable and economical way to intervene in the design changes. 

Without changing the original structure, zoning, norms and other design basis of the case, the entire space environment completes its reborn. On the entrance floor (upper floor), the curvature Wood Grain Aluminum Panel softly rise and fall, cloud-like chandeliers meandering through the place, as if the courtyard green is invited to the inside and refined to form a forest-like free space. Community residents can remove the mask in social life and have a relaxed communication here with a joy of the festival.

"As people need to be sunk, the architects used a large area of black to weak the degree of activity, and further use black and light to create a more private, meditative space in the wings as well as the bathroom," added the architects.

The architects wanted to create the most mysterious mood of bathroom within the whole community. The neighborhood center reached the architect's vision of free communication and thinking.