郑州市位于郑西新区，位于郑州新区公共建筑群的主轴线上。这条轴线长达2.8公里，宽140米。该项目的设计任务书要求建造多个不同的建筑，包括全民健身体育中心，儿童妇女活动中心，青少年活动中心，和群众艺术馆。

在中国快速城市化的进程中，新的公共活动的场所的建立也改变了中国社区活动的传统生活方式。在大型的室内公共活动中心建立之前，大部分的社区活动集中在室外的活动场地。社区中心作为一个城市“舞台”节点，具有开放性的特点，并体现为类似“杂交”的交互结构。这种交互结构鼓励社区成员的即时参与，并鼓励参与者和观众之间积极互动。并且参与者和观众的角色可以随时互换。而在一个具有现代化设施的室内公共活动空间里，空间被按照一定秩序和等级进行划分，不同的活动被‘安排’在不同的空间，丧失了传统社区活动开放性。如何在一个现代化的室内公共活动空间重新建立这种开放的关系，构成了这个项目的主要概念。

全民健身体育中心，儿童妇女活动中心，青少年活动中心，和群众艺术馆的规模达到了近20万平米，所具备的功能几乎可以满足社区所有的活动空间。 它唯一缺少的是不同的活动群体之间的交流与互动，因此这种空间只能称之为公共活动的‘空间’，但不是社区公共活动的‘场所’。

这种等级化的空间不仅对社区的交流活动产生了影响，甚至已经影响到了更基本的社会公共活动单元。以一个具体的三代同堂的中国家庭的周末活动为例。孩子们被送去各种培训中心和业余兴趣班，其中一个父母会负责接送孩子，他/她大多会选择和其他孩子家长一起聊天以打发零碎的等待时间。另一位父母在周末不能和自己的配偶在一起，她/他会安排自己的事情，比如和朋友聚会或者继续工作。老人则除了负责买菜做饭以外，会安排和自己的同龄人一起活动。表面上各得其所，然而一家人在周末却很难在一起参加活动。有没有一种空间，既能满足家庭和成员的各自需求，又提供家庭成员之间，甚至家庭之间的团聚的可能性？比如夫妻可以选择一起参加体育活动，孩子们如果愿意可以和全家人一起吃饭；或者不同的家庭还可以一起聚会？

这个项目的设计策略是对以上问题的反应。设计的第一步是把不同的几个建筑整合成一个建筑，重新梳理他们的组织关系。公共活动空间围绕着一个公共的开放空间展开布置。就像城市的公共空间一样，这个公共活动空间即是公共的交通性空间，同时也是公共活动的“发生器”。这个公共的空间同时向更小的尺度空间‘渗透’，形成公共空间与‘室内’空间之间的联系。

建筑的功能空间根据他们之间的相关性，自东至西按照群众艺术馆，剧院，妇女儿童活动中心，青少年活动中心，全民健身体育中心的顺序‘粘合’在一起。不同的功能区域的界限不再泾渭分明，而是根据他们之间的合理的互动关系组织在一起。其中羽毛球场、篮球场、排球场等大尺度的空间布置在顶层，一方面有利于大跨结构空间的结构布置，另一方顶层空间局部设置天窗，有利于大空间的采光、通风，易于营造更自然化的活动场所。后勤办公区则被安排在公共活动区的后面，并且拥有相对独立的交通系统。底层空间被架空，设计成自然的室外景观区域，成为公众集体参与的室外公共活动场所。

此时，建筑形成了一个城市的缩影，在这里，每个人都是参与者，每个人都是观众，各种活动与体验相互交融，社区价值得以真正的体现。对城市而言，这已经不仅仅是一个建筑，而是一个人们热爱城市生活的一个窗口，一个展示城市生活的舞台。

Located in Zhengxi New area, Zhengzhou is located on the main axis of the public building complex in Zhengzhou New area. The axis is 2.8 kilometers long and 140 meters wide. The project’s design specification calls for the construction of a variety of buildings, including a national fitness sports centre, a children and women’s activity centre, a youth activity centre and a mass art museum.

In the process of rapid urbanization, the establishment of new venues for public events has also changed the traditional lifestyle of Chinese community activities. Before the establishment of the large-scale indoor public activity centre, most of the community activities were focused on outdoor venues. The community centre, as an urban “stage” node, is characteristic of openness and is reflected in an interactive structure similar to a “hybrid” pattern. This interactive structure encourages the immediate participation of community members and encourages the active interaction between participants and audiences. Moreover, roles of participants and audiences can be swapped at any time. In an indoor public activity space with a modern setting, space is divided according to a certain order and grade, and different activities are arranged in different spaces, thus losing the openness of traditional community activities. How to re-establish this open relationship in a modern indoor public activity space makes up the major concept of this project.

The size of a national fitness sports centre, a children and women’s activity centre, a youth activity centre and a mass art museum reaches close to 200,000 square meters with functions meeting the majority of the activities in the community. It is only lacking in the communication and interaction between different groups. Therefore, this type of space can only be called a ‘space’ of public activities, but not a ‘venue’ of communal activities.

These hierarchical spaces not only affect the communal communication activities, but also affect the most fundamental social public activity unit. Take the weekend activities of a three-generation family as an example, which is a typical family structure in China. The parents would drop their children off to attend training programs and interest-oriented classes. One of the parents would be responsible for picking their children up, and in most cases he/she would communicate among themselves while waiting for their children to pass time. As a consequence, spouses are not together on weekends and one of them would be spending time on their own, meeting friends or working. Besides doing grocery shopping, the elders also arrange activities among their peers. In this situation, the respective family members would have their ideas on how to spend their weekends instead of doing it together. Is there a space that provides and allows family members to get together and reunite whilst meeting their individual needs? For instance, having spaces where couples can participate in sports activities, children can dine with the whole family, or having different families gather together?

The design strategy of this project corresponds to the question above. The first design step is to merge different builtes into one, then reorganizing their network of functionality. The public activity space is arranged around a public open space accordingly based on the correlation between them. Just like the urban public space, this public activity space is the common transportation space as well as the “producer” of public activities. The public space ‘permeates’ towards a smaller scale space, forming the connection between public space and ‘indoor’ space.

Based on the correlation between functional spaces of architecture, the public activity space is tightly arranged from east to west by following the order of mass art museum, theater, women and children’s activity centre, youth activity centre, and national fitness sports centre accordingly. The boundaries of different functional areas are no longer distinct from each other, but organized together in accordance with their reasonable interactions. Large-scale spaces such as badminton courts, basketball courts, and volleyball courts are on the top floor, which is beneficial for the structural layout of large-span structural spaces. The other side of top floor space is partially equipped with skylights, which makes for large-space daylighting and ventilation and is easy to build more natural venues. The rear service office area is arranged behind the public activity area with relatively independent traffic systems. The ground floor space is elevated and designed as a natural outdoor landscape area to facilitate public participation in outdoor public activities.

The public cultural complex itself resembles a miniature of a city where everyone has the opportunity to play the role of a participant and an audience. A network that portrays the integration of various activities and experiences truly reflects the value of a community. In the context of a city, the complex is no longer merely considered as a mass of architecture, but a window and a stage to embrace and present people’s love in their lives.