Joyous Spring Wellness Center by Soong Lab+: Adaptive Reuse Wellness Architecture in Beijing

The Joyous Spring Wellness Center by Soong Lab+ transforms an abandoned structure beyond Beijing’s Fifth Ring Road into a world-class destination for holistic health and relaxation. Completed in 2024, the 13,000 m² project demonstrates the potential of wellness architecture to revive underutilized spaces while creating immersive environments centered on water, light, and sensory experience.

Adaptive Reuse and Conceptual Transformation

Originally built as a swimming facility, the structure had fallen into disuse before its revitalization. The architects, led by Wang Songtao, approached the project as an exercise in adaptive reuse, reshaping the building through structural modification, spatial subtraction, and reprogramming. By removing the pitched glass roof over the central pool, the design reconnects the building with the sky, transforming a dark underground space into a luminous sunken courtyard filled with natural light.

Water as the Core Element

Water anchors the design, guiding the sensory journey through the center. From hot spring bathing to therapy pools, the project choreographs a sequence of experiences where water is encountered in multiple forms. Near the central courtyard, sunlight and water merge to create uplifting landscapes; further inside, water becomes still and contemplative, culminating in secluded steam rooms and intimate soaking areas. This layered approach defines the essence of wellness architecture, where atmosphere, light, and materiality combine to heal and restore.

Spatial Experience and Flow

The reconfigured building unfolds as a sequence of thresholds between interior and exterior. Garden windows frame light-filled views, circulation corridors blur the boundary between open air and enclosure, and courtyards extend spatial depth. Visitors experience a gradual transition from openness to intimacy—public pools leading to semi-private baths, and finally, enclosed steam chambers. Each zone creates distinct atmospheres, designed to align with the body’s shifting rhythms of relaxation and renewal.

Light as a Design Material

The project masterfully employs natural light to activate space. The central sunken courtyard acts as a light well, drawing daylight into the subterranean interior. As one moves deeper into the complex, light softens, shifting from vibrant brightness to gentle twilight, before fading into shadowed, secluded bathing chambers. This controlled interplay of light and darkness emphasizes the transformative capacity of wellness architecture, turning the passage of light into a meditative journey.

Reimagining Wellness Architecture in Beijing

The Joyous Spring Wellness Center stands as a model for future urban retreats, where architecture itself becomes a medium of healing. By transforming an idle structure into a destination for hot spring therapy, spa services, dining, and short-stay accommodations, the project positions wellness as a cultural and architectural priority within Beijing’s urban framework. It demonstrates how adaptive reuse and wellness architecture can work together to restore both buildings and human experience.

Through the integration of water, light, and adaptive reuse, the Joyous Spring Wellness Center by Soong Lab+ exemplifies the power of wellness architecture. More than a spa, it is an architectural retreat that blurs the boundaries of interior and exterior, transforming disuse into vitality and creating spaces where body, mind, and environment are renewed in harmony.

All Photographs are works of  Weiqi Jin