Explore The Ultimate Futuristic Playground In Shanghai

In-person experiences are trending—and not just for work. In Shanghai, XBox Family Sports Center offers a sleek outlet for entertainment of the old-fashioned, IRL nature. The roughly 32,000-square-foot, three-story indoor playground, by local firm Fun Connection for Hangzhou Ningnuo Investment Management Company, houses more than 30 interactive games to get the adrenaline pumping in up to 600 visitors at a time. And it does so in style.

Completed in May, XBox merges recreation with a minimalist, futuristic aesthetic that targets “Gen Z’s craving for novel and unique experiences,” begins Fun Connection chief designer Yaotian Zhang. The facility’s interwoven array of activities and equipment are both fun and challenging, while imbuing “the joy and sense of accomplishment that sports bring,” continues Zhang, who, in addition to design, has a background in children’s psychology, which he has put to use in such projects as the Most Cured Home in the World, a kids healthcare clinic in Chongqing, its pale blues, sunrise oranges, and cheery terrazzo earning an Interior Design Best of Year Award in 2021. For XBox, clearly different in purpose but similar in demographic, he and his team chose an industrial look “with its exposed steel frames, metal elements, and clean lines to convey a sense of avant-garde and modernity.”

Located in Shanghai Zhonggeng Wander City Mall, the futuristic infra­structure is teased at the storefront, where a sprawling semicircular reception desk backed by a shiny wall of cushiony silver pillows draws the attention of unexpecting shoppers while supporting an expeditious check-in for young thrill-seekers. After storing their shoes in the adjacent locker room, XBox guests can then quickly roll through the turnstiles into the awaiting double-height playground.

There, they’ll have no shortage of options or directions to pursue. Trampolines, zip lines, foam pits, and obstacle courses rising 33 feet fill the perimeter across the three levels. Anchoring the flurry of play zones in the central atrium is the X. Slide, a 36-foot-tall machinelike amalgamation of eight stainless-steel slides intended to emulate factory pipelines. Users can embark down one of four spiral slides offering a 66-foot-long journey, a steep and straight tunnel slide, or one of three wave slides before their orderly deposition at the X. Slide base. Transparent glass toppers on the spiral and tunnel slides give them panoramic views during their descent.

Zhang says the slide was his favorite project element to conceive because it reflects the “futuristic industrial aesthetic” the firm desired, “but also integrates the functional aspects of sports,” he says. “This area is both a concentrated expression of the concept and the soul of the entire center. Therefore, it leaves a deep impression on people both visually and functionally.”

Other highlights include a high-altitude adventure challenge, where up to 50 players can help each other navigate obstacles of varying difficulty, including a 33-foot-high, 118-foot-long zip line. Below, 12 traditional Chinese plum piles invite players to bound from top to top, to a maximum height exceeding 13 feet. “They evoke nostalgic memories of the simple joy of playing Super Mario on early gaming consoles,” says Zhang, who’s an avid gamer himself.

XBox caters to anyone seeking a personal or group experience. The high-altitude adventure, competitive climbing area, slides, and trampoline areas “are perfect for extroverts to engage with others, enjoy social interactions, and partake in teamwork.” Introverts can partake in small-group or individual activities, such as the stepping machine or rope course, or people-watch from transparent tunnels and integrated observation platforms in the adventure castle.

Though designing the project might literally seem like all fun and games, Zhang says his firm also addressed the technical requirements of a multifunctional, multilevel sports center, such as ensuring the safety of all structural and play elements. Fun Connection collaborated with Chinese playground equipment designer and manufacturer Qileer to select soft and impact-friendly contact surfaces, situate hard props and infrastructure to noncontact areas, and distinguish collision surfaces from bearing surfaces with soft padding.

And while Zhang identifies Gen Z as a target demographic, he says the project “considers the needs of different age groups, ensuring that everyone, from children to adults, can find suitable activities.” Restaurants, private party rooms, and lounge areas equipped with seating and device chargers are situated behind the X. Slide, away from the noise and commotion of the play zones. The combination of play, recharging, and gathering areas “ensures that every family member can find enjoyment, increasing the opportunities for shared activities,” Zhang notes.

Not coincidentally, Fun Connection’s choice of an industrial aesthetic for XBox is also ideal for high-traffic, active spaces. For example, the prevailing finishes of concrete and metal are durable and easy to clean and maintain. Bare pipes and exposed metal finishes also maximize clearances and space utilization.

The predominant colors—silver, blue, orange, yellow—also support XBox’s futuristic theme. The metallic hues are reminiscent of machinery, technical instruments, spacecraft, and spacesuits. Blue symbolizes the infinite, profound nature of the Earth’s sky and the universe, and the planet as seen from space. Finally, the oranges and yellows suggest warmth, vitality, the energy of the sun, and the “dynamism and innovation inherent in space exploration,” Zhang says.

With its profusion of activities and zones, XBox Sports Center makes it easy for people of all ages to achieve something that has become increasingly difficult: put down their devices, leave the comfort of home, and engage in active play and conversations firsthand.

Get Active At XBox Family Sports Center

FUN CONNECTION: QIAN ZHU; YINGFEI WANG; ZIHAN QIN; KEYI WANG. QILEER: PLAYGROUND EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURER.

It Takes Two: Tour Nuro’s High-Tech Silicon Valley HQ

Achieving success as a tech startup is difficult. But not if an idea is landed upon that meets a need so clearly. Such is the case with Nuro, a growing robotics company developing zero-occupant, electric, self-driving vehicles that deliver goods using its proprietary mapping technology. Moving full speed ahead, Nuro’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, has recently expanded to include two 1960’s former warehouses. Thanks to Elkus Manfredi Architects, their interiors don’t just avoid generic spec territory, they center on a vision that fulfills the client’s goals, makes optimal use of a space, engages staff, and respects the planet.

The project’s scale is formidable: the renovation of a 58,000-square-foot erstwhile industrial laboratory that would expand Nuro’s existing office at 1290 Terra Bella Avenue, plus a 49,000-square-foot fit-out approximately 500 feet away, at 1330 Terra Bella. A strategy that would tie Nuro’s brand, product, and request for versatile, human-centered spaces with the vast areas became immediately clear to Elkus Manfredi principal Elizabeth Lowrey. Like “being in a plane, looking down on earth, and seeing roads and communities,” she envisioned the interiors laid out as cities, with a network of neighborhoods and a sweeping “ring road,” essentially a track that organizes work functions in its inner “urban” loop and distributed breakout spaces in its outer “suburban” loop.

Lowrey knew the strategy had to avoid crossing into kitsch territory. “How do you interpret city-making in a sophisticated, elegant, and simple way?” she says. “It was about being quiet, not having a concept that was hitting you over the head.” Lowrey navigates this territory well, having the agility and know-how to formulate dynamic interiors for projects as wide-ranging as the upscale White Elephant Palm Beach hotel in Florida to the TMC³ Collaborative Building, an innovative life-sciences and laboratory facility in Houston.

Like a thriving city, Nuro’s program is complex and multifaceted: an R&D engineering hub complete with more than 800 workstations, laboratories, testing areas, and meeting spaces accommodating small groups to town halls. Lowrey and her team embraced the warehouses’ volume and soaring ceiling heights: 14½ feet at 1290, nearly 22 at 1330. “The scale of these buildings can’t be beaten,” she continues. “So, we instead added daylight, air, scale-tempering elements like meeting rooms, and acoustically private spaces to humanize it—and then it’s like having the whole sky above you.”

The simplicity of the ring road, a two-lane, 8-foot-wide track painted on the existing concrete floor of both buildings, belies its impact. Its minimalism is the ultimate sustainable design flex. Its capsule shape nods to Nuro’s logo. It serves as a testing ground for the company’s autonomous vehicles. And, like streets in a city, it provides Nuro employees wayfinding and a main artery that connects all interior spaces.

In 1290, the 540-foot-circumference track encircles meeting rooms, laboratories, a kitchenette, and workstation hubs rotated in different orientations “like a neighborhood plan,” Lowrey explains. The outer loop hosts lounge areas, a café, and workstations distributed along the building perimeter. Private conference rooms positioned prominently along the road are topped with illuminated gable rooflines, forming a human-scale skyline.

In 1330, the 350-foot-diameter ring wraps a multipurpose space that can host all-hands meetings and is overlooked by a mezzanine. The company is currently subleasing this building in anticipation of occupying it in the coming years, according to Timothy Bergen, Nuro’s head of real estate and workplace.

Notwithstanding the occasional Nuro car or cyclist on the track—yes, bikes are allowed—the expansion exudes mobility and adaptability. Staffers, who work in robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and product design, can relocate where they need or want to work with the aid of movable furniture, repositionable track lighting, and an array of seating choices, from acoustic wraparound chairs to counter stools and task chairs in enclosed rooms for recharging or focus work. “We’re trying to empower each employee to do their best work,” Lowrey notes, “letting people control the space versus the space controlling the people.”

In addition to the creation of neighborhoods within walls, other touches distinguish the space as distinctly Nuro. Miniature models of its vehicles are sprinkled throughout 1290. Murals of abstracted street maps delineate the travel paths of the company’s cars in the cities it serves, Mountain View and Houston among them. And, in 1330’s multipurpose area, O-shape pendant fixtures wink to the Nuro’s beguiling round headlamps.

Besides preserving the elements containing the highest embodied carbon—the building structures themselves—the project also retained 53 skylights across both buildings and the wood-framed ceiling decking in building 1290. Though exterior walls were left exposed and unfinished, the renovation cuts in floor-to-ceiling windows to enable expansive viewing angles from the deep floor plates. “You can see the sky, not just what’s straight in front of you,” Lowrey says. Light fixture finishes, soft seating, and carbon-neutral carpet made from recycled materials help dampen sound in the open layouts. A natural color palette of sand, caramel, white, gray, and black conveys the company’s ethos of sustainability, humility, and handcraft.

PROJECT TEAM

ELKUS MANFREDI ARCHITECTS: TARA REILLY; LINDA MACLEOD FANNON; MICHAEL HATHAWAY; MARK VANLUVEN; JACQUELINE HIERSTEINER; MARC CIANNAVEI; MICHAEL STRAHM; ELIZABETH STEVENS; DREA PLUMMER; STEFAN VOLATILE-WOOD. LEMESSURIER: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. MONTBLEAU & ASSOCIATES: MILLWORK. DPR CONSTRUCTION: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

PRODUCT SOURCES

FROM FRONT ALLIED MAKER: PENDANT FIXTURES (CAFÉ). ANDREU WORLD: ROUND TABLES. SITONIT: SOFAS (CAFÉ, RECEPTION, LOUNGE), OTTOMANS (CAFÉ, LOUNGE), TABLES, CHAIRS (MULTIPURPOSE). MUUTO: CHAIRS (CAFÉ, RECEPTION), PENDANT FIXTURES (BREAKOUT, CAFÉ, KITCHENETTE, LOUNGE), STOOLS (CAFÉ). BLU DOT: TABLES (RECEPTION, BREAKOUT, LOUNGES), HIGH-BACK CHAIRS (BREAKOUT, LOUNGES). RBW: PENDANT FIXTURE (RECEPTION). SURFACING SOLUTIONS: DESK VENEER. LAWRENCE DOORS: GARAGE DOOR. HUMANSCALE; TEKNION: WORKSTATIONS (OPEN OFFICE). MAHARAM: HIGH-BACK CHAIR FABRIC (BREAKOUT, LOUNGES). LUCIFERO’S: PENDANT FIXTURES (MULTIPURPOSE). WEST COAST INDUSTRIES: TABLES (CAFÉ). ARCHITESSA: WALL TILE. FORMICA: CABINETRY. CAESARSTONE: TABLETOPS, COUNTERTOP (KITCHEN), COUNTERTOP (LOUNGE). GRAND RAPIDS CHAIR COMPANY: STOOLS (KITCHENETTE). LUCEPLAN: PENDANT FIXTURES (LOUNGES). THROUGHOUT PROSOCO: CONCRETE FLOORING. SHAW CONTRACT: CARPET TILE. 3M: CUSTOM WALLCOVERING. FINELITE: TRACK PENDANT FIXTURES. THE COLLECTIVE: FURNITURE SUPPLIER. ARCHKEY SOLUTIONS: LIGHTING SUPPLIER. BENJAMIN MOORE & CO.: PAINT.

Duke Energy’s Partnership with Depeña Studio Powers Creativity in Charlotte

Charlotte, North Carolina, is largely powered by Duke Energy. Literally but, thanks to a new public art installation by Depeña Studio, figuratively, too. The utility company com­missioned the work for its head­quarters plaza downtown, where founder Ivan Toth Depeña drew on his interpre­tation of the photon, the small­est particle of electromagnetic energy, aka light.

The result, Photon/s, consists of two sculptures that soar 32 and 37 feet high, with 11 rays bursting from each centroid in a 20-­ and 30-­foot diameter, re­spectively. The rays approach contact, which Depeña says “plays with the idea of connec­tivity at the atomic and sub­atomic level, where theoreti­cally nothing actually touches.” Weighing 3,500 pounds collec­tively, they’re anchored in a 10-foot­-square, 5-­foot­-deep concrete foundation and comprise steel armatures encased in high ­density EPS foam wrapped in woven glass fiber cloth, coated with resin, sanded smooth, and finished with a fluoropolymer coating. Each arm is capped with a node of white LEDs that blinks in a nonrepeating pattern, together creating the effect of embers in a campfire.

A third burst appears as a 40­-by­-60­-foot silhouette in Duke Energy’s facade beyond. Here, more than 3,000 LEDs pulse in a looping pattern. “The light bounces off the surrounding buildings, creating a choreography of reflecting and refracting within the plaza volume,” Depeña adds. Cables threading throughout all three sculptures deliver power and data, enabling Photon/s to send actual photons into the evening sky.