Haibing Center of Nankai University aims to provide the old campus with a multifunctional cultural space for students, faculty members, and alumni. The site is flanked by water on both sides, the east side facing Horseshoe Lake, on the central axis of the original Republic of China-era campus dating from a hundred years ago. Haibing Center is an attempt to build a spatial response particular to a specific site. This newly implanted space is set out to further stimulate a positive and high quality modern campus lifestyle in a way that respects the natural environment while retaining the texture of the old campus.

The core issues we considered at the start of the design process were how the new building could respond to both these two bodies of water as well as to the original red brick dining hall, while as much as possible preserving the existing trees and their relationship to the site. To this end, instead of a strategy of whole scale demolition and rebuilding, the project design focuses on preservation and deference to a context where the new and the old can be united in a more authentic and balanced way, maintaining the actual history of the location.