TAO builds 'tide's echo hall' as a cultural beacon on the edge of the yellow sea

tao celebrates the Duality of Ocean and Forest

The Tide’s Echo Hall in Rongcheng, China, is a new landmark by Trace Architecture Office (TAO), positioned between the Yellow Sea and a sweeping ecological shelterbelt. Situated within the city’s Coastal Park, the project is described as a spatial bridge between human activity and natural rhythms. The peninsula-like setting, flanked by dense greenery on three sides and open to the sea on the fourth, allows the building to function as a hinge between land and water, culture and ecology. Designed to host conferences, exhibitions, banquets, and dining, the project sets out to be a vibrant public forum woven into the coastal landscape.

The project sits at the heart of the Coastal Park on an 11,200-square-meter site that straddles a coastal ecological promenade. Gently sloping terrain provides the foundation for a design that responds to two very different natural cues: the forested calm of a black pine grove to the west and the infinite openness of the sea to the east. This ecological duality inspired a sensitive and multifaceted architectural approach, one that frames shifting views and moods within a single cohesive composition.

images © AOGVISION (unless otherwise stated)

echoing the Sea with Sail-like Lightness

The Tide’s Echo Hall complex unfolds across three zones, each tailored by TAO to its specific environmental context. The main exhibition and conference hall anchors the eastern edge closest to the sea, where its form opens up to embrace ocean views. The architects tuck a restaurant into the western pine forest creates a quieter, more contemplative setting, centered around a secluded courtyard. Between them, a food court runs in a clean horizontal line along the coastline, maximizing exposure to natural light and sea breezes. Throughout the complex, spaces blend and overlap, establishing porous transitions between interior and exterior, and between architecture and topography.

At the heart of the project, the Tide’s Echo Hall reveals itself as a poetic gesture to the maritime setting. Facing the sea, the building’s undulating white roof becomes its most distinctive feature — evocative of a sail caught in motion. From the inland side, the structure bows modestly toward the forest, while from the coast, it opens fully, offering sweeping views from a rooftop platform that seems to float above the shoreline. Ultra-thin roof planes supported by slender columns amplify this lightness, creating a structure that balances mass and movement with elegant tension.

Tide’s Echo Hall is located on a peninsula-like site in Rongcheng, flanked by forest and sea

a zigzagging roof extends along the coast

The restaurant, nested in the pine woods, offers a contrasting experience. Here, architecture retreats and listens. Its red concrete walls, cast with timber formwork, blend into the natural palette of the forest. The roof dips lower, its contours echoing — but never mimicking — the sail-like gesture of the Hall. Together, these buildings choreograph a visual and spatial conversation: forest to sea, grounded weight to airborne lift.

The food court draws a literal and figurative line along the coast, a 170 meter (558 foot)-long form that stretches between beach and forest. Its zigzagging roofline introduces rhythm and variation, while long-span folded plate structures frame the ocean in a continuous panoramic sweep. Floor-to-ceiling glazing renders the facade nearly invisible, allowing the roof to float above the beach in apparent defiance of gravity. This transparency invites visitors into the landscape, dissolving any hard boundary between interior and exterior.

the architecture responds to the dual landscape with open sea views and sheltered woodlands

Beneath the soaring roof of the Tide’s Echo Hall, the architects deploy a strategy of fragmentation. The monumental is made human through a composition of staggered, rock-like volumes that echo the irregularity of coastal geology. Each geometric form houses a distinct function — conference rooms, halls, and support spaces — while collectively, they form a sculptural landscape of built space. Their shifting forms and overlapping edges generate both intimacy and openness, offering visitors a layered spatial experience that unfolds like a walk among boulders.

The interior architecture of the Tide’s Echo Hall amplifies the sense of movement and multiplicity. Multi-layered ceilings segment volumes into varied spatial pockets, while generous circulation paths act as urban corridors that connect diverse programs. Along the way, balconies, openings, and platforms offer alternate views, shifting scales, and spatial tension. The result is a built environment that feels more like a coastal micro-city than a single-use venue, one that encourages exploration and interaction.

the complex includes a main hall, restaurant, and food court | image © Xiangzhou Sun

Circulation becomes choreography in the Tide’s Echo Hall, especially through the carefully crafted promenade that links forest and sea. A ramp gently rises to a public viewing platform on the second floor, guiding visitors along a sequence of shifting thresholds — some narrow and enclosed, others expansive and open to the elements. The architecture intentionally frames and disrupts the view, alternating between compression and release. This journey, rather than any static destination, becomes the core architectural experience.

The Tide’s Echo Hall acts as a coastal threshold, dissolving boundaries between people and place. The promenade becomes a liminal space between land and sea, indoor and outdoor, city and nature. On the viewing platforms or beneath the floating roof, visitors encounter not just a structure, but an atmosphere where architecture listens to the rhythms of wind and tide, and reflects the ecological spirit of Rongcheng’s coastal identity.

the food court’s zigzagging roofline extends along the coast