Green Heart Commercial Complex & A4X Art Center – A Park‑Integrated Retail Hub in Chongqing

When you first step onto the site, the first thing you notice isn’t a glass tower or a glossy façade, but the gentle slope of a park that seems to have grown out of the city itself. E PLUS DESIGN took that cue and built the Green Heart Commercial Complex and the adjoining A4X Art Center right into the hillside, letting the surrounding landscape dictate the architecture rather than the other way around.

The brief – given by client Wide Horizon – was intentionally broad: create a destination that could host shops, a supermarket, cafés, a book‑store, and an exhibition space, all while staying true to Chongqing’s mountainous character. The team, led by Fu Li and Coco Zhou, responded by breaking the mass into a series of interlocking blocks that rise and fall like the terrain they occupy. Each block steps back from the street, revealing courtyards and planter boxes that spill green onto the concrete.

Inside, the program is equally fluid. The food court and supermarket share a common atrium, the latter framed by hanging gardens curated by Dongshan Plant Atelier. A‑type storefronts, such as the Lom store, were given a crisp, minimalist shell by MOD, while the café‑bookstore hybrid is a cozy nook designed by Mengye Space Creative Design Firm, complete with its own indoor planting scheme from WEHO DESIGN.

At the heart of the complex lies the A4X Art Center, a cultural wing that feels more like a sculpture than a building. TEKTONN ARCHITECTS treated the interior as an exhibition in itself, with flexible galleries and soft lighting supplied by Brandston Partnership Inc. The center hosts rotating installations that echo the site’s theme of “boundless mountain city,” blurring the line between art and environment.

Landscape designers from Z+T Studio and Chongqing Tianhua Zhijing Ecological Landscape Co., Ltd. turned the surrounding green area into a public park – Green Heart Park – that cascades down to the riverbank. Nighttime floodlighting, planned by HdA, casts a warm glow that accentuates the contours of the terrain without overwhelming the sky.

All this was made possible by a collaborative effort: structural engineering from XinY Structural Consultants, façade renovation by ZAD, lighting by Brandston, and a host of specialists handling everything from interior planting to lighting control. The result is a place that feels lived‑in from day one, yet flexible enough to evolve with the city’s rhythm.

In an era where retail often looks like a screen‑filled, homogenized box, Green Heart and the A4X Art Center remind us that architecture can still be grounded, place‑specific, and, most importantly, a little bit messy – just like the everyday life it serves.