With UCD’s Design, Wanli Defines a New Approach to the Urban Vacation Experience

Launched on December 26, 2025, Wanli International Commercial and Entertainment Complex serves as the first TOD (Transit-Oriented Development) project centered on integrated business, culture, and tourism facilities. It features three key zones: Wangfujing WellTown, NOUS•LAND and Tingyun Micro-Resort Town. With NOUS•LAND having first opened its doors, Wanli is now in full bloom. 

Wangfujing WellTown and NOUS•LAND, meticulously designed by UCD, act as the project’s crowning touch. With integrated design thinking, they accurately satisfy the contemporary urban demands for micro-resort, painting a forward-looking vision for next-generation TOD while bringing new energy to Beijing’s urban life.

Micro-vocation destination in the sub-city center

In today’s fast-moving cities, a getaway without going far becomes a rare treasure. Wanli answers this call by establishing an international lifestyle destination dedicated to the micro-holiday ideal.

Nestled in the Cultural Tourism Zone of Beijing’s Sub-Center and west of Universal Studios Beijing, Wanli covers about 500,000 square meters as a one-stop micro-vacation destination featuring shopping, accommodation, art and leisure. As a significant international commercial and entertainment complex, Wanli collaborates with cultural and tourism projects, including Universal Studios Beijing, Vertex Business Park and Haichang Ocean World, to collectively enhance the Sub-Center’s global appeal as a leisure destination.

Role Innovation of Rail Transit Hubs

Wanli is an innovative practice of the TOD model, achieving the deep integration of stations, cities, people, industries and sustainability. It energizes traffic facilities with urban functions and vitality, presenting a visionary prototype for future-ready city life. 

Through multi-dimensional connectivity, the arrival experience is under reconstruction. Wanli is seamlessly linked to Huazhuang Station, a transfer hub for three metro lines, forming a sheltered, multi-layered pedestrian system. It allows visitors to easily blend into the commercial environment, gaining the feeling of “arrival-at-the-destination” and turning an ordinary commute into a surprising and anticipated experience.

A co-existence ecosystem of various industries creates a seamless, looping experience. The plan employs a vertical hybrid layout. The base-level depot area houses targeted retail stores and hotels, embedded in a pedestrian-friendly streetscape village. Linking these worlds vertically is a series of characteristic bridges, weaving in cultural spaces such as the MOMA Art Museum, Yunfang Gallery, and Music Experience Hall. This fusion forges a full shopping, living, playing and entertaining cycle, turning passenger flows into real guests who desire to have an immersive experience.

Landscape is well integrated with the beautiful city. By means of the overall form control, integrated greenscape design, and artistic facade treatment, Wanli ensures it blends with the urban fabric, eliminating the negative impact of side walls, forming a continuous and cohesive urban frontage, thereby welcoming all here with its aesthetic appeal.

Nature and the Future: A Synergistic Narrative

With the core philosophy of nature and the future, Wanli weaves together a series of compelling scenes, including a breathtaking art dome, hanging gardens, galleries brimming with artistic ambiance, etc. 

Seamlessly woven into the urban fabric while embracing nature, Wanli echoes the layout of Beijing in all aspects. To the northwest, large-scale business zones and hotels anchor the site, while the southeast podium transitions gently with clusters of smaller-scale structures. Leveraging large areas of terraces, roof gardens and vertical greening, the architecture opens itself to the landscape, greeting the first light of dawn with a lightened grace.

Wangfujing WellTown is a perfect testament to the concept of nature and the future. The three iconic domes at the core commercial areas poetically translate the themes of galaxy, water and light into architectural form. The Realm of Light features a glass dome with LED lights inspired by the calla lily, dynamically shifting from daylight to aurora-like luminescence between day and night. The Realm of Water blends digital water scenes with a physical waterfall, creating a stunning interactive spectacle. The Realm of the Void breaks the interior and exterior boundaries and becomes a vibrant gathering place with its distinctive black-hole shape.

The hanging garden NOUS•LAND, whose design draws inspiration from the cultural essence of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, recreates a classic scene in modern expression by innovative interpretation through contemporary architectural language and a futuristic lens. At the top of the structure, key public spaces, including the lobby, swimming pool and restaurants, are gathered to form a sky lounge that embraces the glow of sunset and overlooks the vibrant spectacle of Universal Studios Beijing. On its first floor, MOMA Art Museum is introduced as a refined spatial anchor, establishing a rich cultural and artistic tone for the entire resort experience.

Craftsmanship Spirits Behind the Highest Enjoyment

By responding innovatively to intricate engineering constraints with refined technical support, every immersive spatial encounter and aesthetic detail achieves a harmonious zenith of visual art and bodily comfort.

The deep integration of structural aesthetics and spatial intentions. The largest individual building of Wangfujing WellTown spans 295 meters in length, with interior bridges ranging from 24 to 38 meters in width. At the heart of the design lies a large-span spatial steel structure paired with an elaborate curtain wall system. The well-designed structure for dome drainage, snow load resistance and extreme condition management not only creates an artful interior environment, but also fully reveals the elegant beauty of the three grand domes, achieving a harmonious unity of structural artistry and natural inspiration.

Seismic innovation gives the “Sunset Box” at NOUS•LAND its flexible and elegant posture. It is a space where any activity, including sitting quietly, engaging in talk, or doing hearty exercises, unfolds against the stunning panoramic view, placing immersive comfort and calm seamlessly within reach.

The integrated guarantee of sustainability, comfort and intelligence. With the Green Building Label as the core, a complementary renewable energy system is deployed. By integrating ground-source and air-source heat pumps, along with BIPV, the team innovatively unified BIPV elements with the glass dome in a single design, creating a harmonious balance between photovoltaic function, architectural aesthetics, energy performance and visual presentation.

NOUS•LAND adopts an innovative zoning-based environmental control strategy. Heating is exclusive for the commercial atrium, while the elevated glass bridges are equipped with an independent all-air system. While fully preserving the building’s visual integrity, this approach maintains a constant, pleasant temperature in every space, fostering a seasonless, immersive retreat experience.

Every detail in the guest rooms is crafted for seamless comfort. A riser circulation system with electric heat tracing provides near-instant hot water within five seconds, ensuring constant warmth is always at hand. The same-level drainage design eliminates noise disturbance, guaranteeing undisturbed privacy. In partial exterior walls of bathrooms, radiant floor heating ensures gentle warmth spreads slowly from the floor upward, turning every moment of your stay into an experience of care.

Smart technology drives the full operational workflow, building an intelligent management platform that unifies AI-driven crowd analytics, smart security, busbar temperature alerts, energy control and intelligent lighting. Multiple systems work in concert to deliver around-the-clock assurance for secure and efficient project performance, elevating low-carbon operations to a new height.

As a masterful demonstration of design thinking, the Wanli project has successfully unlocked new value within urban stock space in Beijing. UCD tackles the complex technical painpoints of building atop active transit facilities while, more importantly, breathing new life into a mere transport hub through visionary planning, inspiring spaces, and thoughtful details, transforming Wanli into a thriving life harbor, a place where people can both visit and dwell. This project is not only a key milestone for Beijing’s sub-city center, but also a typical example of China’s station-city integration through the TOD model.