This project location is in Wuhan, China. The site includes an abandoned factory that produces bedding and sheets from the 1950s until 2012. The local authorities are teaming up with an American life science R&D company called Denovo Health Industries Co. to develop a mega-size life science-themed mixed-use campus for a large privately funded hospital, research institutes, medical R&D companies, rehab facilities dedicated to alternative medicine, senior care units, and apartment units for the employees of these enterprises.

As a medically themed mixed-use development, this project draws the recourses of Nobel Prize winners and their research areas for joint-venture opportunities in local and national healthcare markets. For this central theme, the master plan designed a Nobel Institute dedicated to top-level research scientists to become anchor tenants of this medical campus. The Institute has state-of-the-art research labs, along with 5-star support facilities housed next to their labs. This institute, paired with a beautifully landscaped “life science garden”, is the centerpiece of this mega-development.



Another key element of this project is the fact it contains an abandoned factory. This type of urban revitalization project will set an example for many old urban industries that are being replaced by cleaner, smoke-less newer industries of the new age. In the case of this project, we preserved some former industrial elements of the site, such as the large chimney, the former manufacturing building, and several smaller structures that are being converted into landmarking elements that will be used as way-finding structures and historical markers in the new healthcare campus.
The adaptive reuse design of the former manufactory building is a separate project designed by SAAN and also commissioned by the local district. It is a detailed architectural design exercise that will be featured separately, under the keyword of Denovo R&D adaptation design. See the image below for a glimpse.
