Designed by OPEN Architecture, Shede Culture Museum is located in the East Garden of Shede distillery in Shehong, Sichuan and was topped out in January 2026. On the misty shore of River Fu, where mountains meander, three island-like architectural volumes make their appearances from a vast circular pond, together manifesting the tectonics of the “One Pond, Three Mountains” landscaping ideal that traverses tradition and future.
Shehong lies at the base of the Sichuan Basin, a lowland in southwestern China with a perennially temperate, humid climate that has produced a lush environment. The distillery, distant from urban areas, is embraced by this natural landscape with exceptional ecological conditions. Non-human actors, such as air, water, soil, flora, and microbes, combine with the enduring local traditional techniques and craftsmanship, resulting in the distinctive Shede spirits. These interdependent human and non-human agencies, and the responsive processes they generate, profoundly inspired and informed the architectural design.
OPEN’s design started with selecting the site and shaping the landscape to form a micro-environment. The architect discovered the East Garden which is adjacent to a major road and the distillery’s entrance, but is barely used at the moment, being away from the core production area. This site has great potential to connect the distillery with the public in the future.
A 90-meter-diameter circular pond is inserted into the existing garden and encircled by a visually semi-transparent covered walkway. Within the water, quiet gushing springs and plasma misting devices active the surface. The circle, without corners, integrating seamlessly with the existing landscape while staging a serene, poetic precinct for the architecture of the new museum.
Three seemingly independent volumes emerge from the water—the Bronze Box, the Earth Box, and the Glass Box. Each establishes a distinct relationship with the water surface: one floats above it, one rests within the pool, and one is embedded in the water with half above and half below the surface. The translucent glass volume is quietly sheathed in flowing water that cascades down the glass surfaces on all sides to the second basement level below, where it is continuously recirculated.
The reflections of the buildings in the pond, the flowing water and drifting mist, the islands and bridges, together frame a poetic and atmospheric ambience, at once minimalist, restrained and rich, ever-changing. The separated architectural volumes and the interweaving waterscape generate a unique museum experience. Here, the visitors traverses the “mountains” of the architecture and the water of the landscape, alternating between dark immersive exhibition spaces and the changing waterscape. Amid the continual shifts between the tangible and the intangible, light and shadow, one senses a deep connection with the natural environment, the cycles of time, and the culture of poetry-and-spirits.
The design draws on the classical Chinese garden principle of “One Pond, Three Mountains”, where expansive water and islands within evoke the immortal realm in ancient mythology. In the collective imagination of early Chinese culture, the immortal realm embodies an ideal mode of life, sharing inextricable connections to the state of ethereal lightness from the long tradition of poetry-and-spirits.
Spirit is an art of time: a product of nature and time fermenting together. OPEN chooses three natural materials closely related to the making of Shede spirits—raw earth, glass, and bronze—to sculpt a poem of time. The Glass Box, veiled by flowing water, soundlessly tells a story of water—the source of life and the undertone of spirits. The Earth Box is built with local yellow mud, the same material used to build fermentation pits, which are the soul of the making of Shede spirits. Rammed-earth is a local vernacular construction method; when combined with contemporary techniques, the rammed-earth walls maintain their thermal properties, while being better prepared to withstand weathering and marks of time. Special symbols are embedded into the earth walls, left for future generations to interpret. The Bronze Box is clad in semi-cylindrical perforated bronze panels; the intricate perforations on the panels are, in fact, verses about spirits transcribed in Morse code. Bronze was a common material to make traditional spirit vessels and musical instruments; the façade cladding is therefore the architect’s homage to the craftsmanship of spirit-making. Over time, the patina over the bronze surface would witness natural changes, as if the building possesses life in its own way.
The three floating boxes house the main public programs, including the entrance lobby, exhibition spaces, workshop, restaurant, and shop. Beneath the water surface, the spaces are unified into a cohesive entity, accommodating a small multifunctional theater, rehearsal room, café, offices, and back-of-house facilities. This set-up offers visitors a rich, multi-dimensional experience, while the connectedness of the underground spaces preserves the apparent purity and poetry of the architecture above ground.
The museum integrates both passive and active strategies to create a low-carbon, resilient, environmentally friendly building system. The combined use of a ground heat pump system and water thermal storage for cooling and heating significantly reduces operating costs. Photovoltaic solar panels are installed on the roof of the Bronze Box to generate power. Hot water for daily use is supplied by air-source heat pumps and solar panels; the fresh air system uses heat recovery units. Meanwhile, the project establishes a water recycling system to collect and reuse rainwater. The water diverted from the Fu River, already being used in the distillery’s production process, is used for the pond landscape, thereby fully leveraging existing infrastructure and resources on and around the site.
Construction of the museum is in full swing, and is expected to be completed in spring 2027. This project has been awarded the First Prize of the Active House Award 2025, as well as the Platinum Award of the un Design Awards.
