The firm MAD Architects, headed by Ma Yansong, has unveiled its design for a cultural center in Anji, located in southeast China’s Zhejiang Province and known as the country’s bamboo and white tea city. The 149,000-square-meter complex features a theater seating 1,300, an auditorium for conferences that will take in 2,000, a leisure center, sports facilities, plus spaces for youth activities and art education.

The roofs combine white metal pieces shaped like bamboo leaves with grass surfaces evoking tea plantations, with openings in between to let daylight in. The self-supporting glass wall of the main facade rises 17 meters. Construction has begun and completion is programmed for 2025.