Shenzhen is a legend in Chinese recent history. It has changed itself from a small fishing village to a metropolitan city in just over two decades. It is a catchment of all the elites both at home and aboard. It holds certain degree of resemblance to Hong Kong(which is just a stone's throw away) but also differs with its own character in many ways.
Hua Qiao Cheng (which means Overseas Chinese Townor 'OCT' was originally developed by a group of Chinese returned from overseas who eventually settled down there) is a well-developed and managed community - a live record showing how this fascinating city evolves.
Under the new social scenario, there is a movement that relatively old buildings and factories can be redeveloped to accommodate creative and design industry. The Creation & Art Park where the LOFT Youth Hostel and the Contemporary Art Center situate, is a classic example aiming to provide a place for artists and designers all over the world to meet under one roof through which people can inspire each other with a mixture of traditional and modern outlook of China to produce a new vocabulary.
Hua Qiao Cheng is well landscaped within a radius of 3.5 Km, about half of the space is full of trees and scrubs. It is a garden town inside a metropolitan city. Contemporary art centre, art studios, supermarkets, theme parks, mangrove nature reserve, botanic garden, ecological square and Yan Han Shan walking trail are all in the vicinity.
The Youth Hostel turns a somewhat unattractive worker dwellings into a simple but good quality budget accommodation and meeting place. The idea is to keep the original architecture and to incorporate it with contemporary style extension. The scale, proportion and proper use of basic materials are all the important elements to show the power of simplicity. By applying a contemporary design ethos to an existing structure, it creates a vision of different stages of the local history and the transformation of life style during the course of time.
We are a social enterprise: Our mission is to promote cross-culture experience, environmental awareness and social responsibilities. We organize youth exchange programme, which helps to broaden young people's horizon and understanding.
