Commissioned by Hongkong Land, Wutopia Lab designed the interior of The Seed. The project took three years and was completed on April 30, 2026.

The Seed, together with Orbit completed in 2023, belongs to the West Bund Central project by Hongkong Land. When we were invited, the architectural scheme had already been largely finalized. As an exhibition space, The Seed lacked a narrative that could connect the above-ground and the underground. This became the starting point of the design.

The Seed is located in Xuhui, Shanghai. In 1607, XU Guangqi planted the seeds of modern Chinese civilization here, providing the site with an enduring metaphor.

We adopt the archetype of the Tree of Life, which spans religion, mythology, and science. Rather than representing a literal tree, we extract its underlying structure—the relationships among seed, roots, soil, and time.

Humans live on the surface, yet the growth of seeds always occurs in the invisible depths. The cave thus ceases to be a natural form and becomes a translated spatial language—a condition of incubation, enclosure, and generation.

The design unfolds from this process: roots extend downward from the ground plane, pass through the structure, enter the underground, and eventually take hold within the cave. The root is no longer a formal expression but a path of force. The cave is abstracted into a continuous spatial interface, while light enters from above and becomes the primary variable governing everything.

A spatial language is thus established: light defines direction, materials respond to light, and color and texture gradually emerge through its transformation. The above-ground and underground are no longer simply layered, but reorganized into a unified generative system.

The “seed” in The Seed is not confined to biological meaning. It may represent the seed of fashion, culture, nature, or technology—anything yet to happen but already in the process of becoming.

The design begins with subtraction. On the underground level plan, we removed the internal elevator and staircase, and worked with structural engineers to eliminate eight existing columns, thereby freeing a complete column-free space. At the same time, the side glass curtain wall was closed, and a descending corridor was introduced to control light, allowing the spatial experience to gradually contract upon entry.

At the center of the ground floor, we opened a skylight, allowing natural light to penetrate the structure and reach the underground space, establishing a clear vertical relationship.

The root system is woven from textured stainless steel, extending from the ground floor down into the underground, where it firmly anchors within the cave. While integrating systems such as smoke exhaust, sprinklers, HVAC, lighting, and maintenance access, it forms a tensioned ceiling interface.

The underground space primarily employs stone materials. The central exhibition hall features rough-chiseled basalt walls, while the flooring is an organic terrazzo inspired by the sedimentation of fallen leaves. Through variations in scale, texture, and assembly, we reinterpret the condition of the cave, allowing the space to express a sense of erosion and deposition over time. Materials are no longer surfaces, but active participants in the relationship between light and space.

Space is not a container, but a constructed relationship. People dwell within it, light descends through it, and time becomes perceptible within it.

When visitors enter the underground level, they are inevitably drawn to the massive root system overhead—this is why the space is called The Root.

In the practice of Wutopia Lab, exhibition spaces are never neutral backgrounds but designed modes of viewing. In Orbit, space is organized through “flow,” allowing visitors to continuously reposition themselves through movement. In The Seed, this approach is translated into “descent”: people move downward, light enters from above, and the root establishes a connection between the two, giving the space its direction.

Here, the above-ground and underground are redefined as two interfaces within a single system: one carries visible order, while the other nurtures invisible growth. Light becomes the medium that connects them, the root becomes the path that traverses them, and space becomes the condition that allows all of this to occur.

The Root is not a result, but a process of continuous becoming. Growth always takes place in the unseen.