This building’s facade is endlessly adaptable

For a mixed-use development, the Westlake 66 project in Hangzhou, China, was especially mixed up. Like many projects in this category, the development was initially devised to add a combination of offices, retail, hotels, and public space, weaving the different uses into a six-tower, multiblock amalgamation that would cover more than 2 million square feet. But between the start of the project in 2018 and its completion earlier this year, the exact mix of uses changed repeatedly. [Photo: Blackstation/courtesy KPF] The New York City-based architects behind the project, Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), turned that uncertainty into the project’s defining design feature. The entire project’s podium level has been wrapped with a cell wall facade treatment that can reconfigure based on whatever is happening inside the building. The modular system allows for a variety of exterior conditions on the building, from wide windows letting light into a boutique showroom to narrow tinted windows for a dim bar lounge to a louvered vent to let the building’s mechanical systems breathe. Should the uses inside the buildings change over time, the exterior could be adjusted to match. [Photo: StudioSZ/Justin Sz…