Image Credit : CAAI
Project Overview
An international and artistically trendy new urban area, known as Grand Canal New Town, is emerging on the east bank of the Grand Canal in Hangzhou. Situated in the new town, the residential development Hongkong Land o The Riverside is aimed at bringing not merely urban dwelling buildings to the citizens, but also cultural symbols that represent the Grand Canal New Town. The project is the demonstration area of the residential development. The design concept is to maximally refresh lifestyle via art.
The architects pondered how to combine the historical context of the Grand Canal and the life of the new town, as well as how to offer a new lifestyle that combines artistic aesthetics and lively ambience.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Shao Xin , Dou Di , Quan Wuxian , Jin Bo, Piao Guanghao ,Tu Can , Li Hong , Qiu Hanlin ,Yang Ben , Zhou Kan
Project Brief
The architects intended to build the project into a composite commercial and community center rather than a mere sales center. They committed to creating an open and dynamic 100-meter-long demonstration area on the east side of the residential community, aiming at realizing the integration of the community and the city.
In terms of the spatial organization, Hongkong Land · The Riverside breaks the conventional design of the single residential buildings and plans a series of dynamic, city-facing public spaces along the street on the east of the demonstration area. Given that the small-scale plots are too difficult to accommodate big volumes to embody magnificence, the architects adopted the strategy of “gathering the parts into a whole” and used strong design languages to approach the east city-facing surface to present a sense of territory and form rich spaces inside the community and create a warm, open and dynamic 100-meter-long demonstration area.
The facade of the building in the demonstration area is mainly arch-shaped. The architects leveraged unified and simple design languages to array the arches successively, thus forming wavy forms that echo with the texture of the Grand Canal and shape an iconic gateway for the community.
Project Innovation/Need
1. Hongkong Land · The Riverside breaks the conventional design of the single residential buildings and adopts the design of “gathering the parts into a whole”, hence creating a boundary less community;
2. Adjacent to the Grand Canal, the project enjoys a unique natural canal landscape, which is rare to most cities. It also boasts many excellent educational resources in its surroundings such as middle and primary schools (under planning), a Shao Yifu Hospital (under construction) and large supporting facilities such as Yunhe Bay complex (under construction). The open and dynamic area on the east of the demonstration area, the linked landscape area and the stilted floor were also planned within the community. Parent-child sports space and community landscape system like natural classrooms were designed to create a healthy, artistic and quality community living.
Design Challenge
The project took environment as the starting point, focused on the overall harmonious relationship of the living areas and combined unique regional cultural resources, so as to emphasize the feeling and experience of people in architectural premises. The preliminary design anchored the contemporary architecture in a unique historical environment.
In dealing with the design, the architects divided and cut the blocks and left space for pocket parks, in order to highlight spatial openness and dialogue with the city. The rich and three-dimensional spaces breaks the regular design of the single residential buildings and creates a dynamic public area that seamlessly blends the community with the city, thereby accentuating the openness of the community and its interaction with the city.
The architectural design concept is based on the waves of the Grand Canal. The architects extracted and extended the special symbols of Grand Canal to create affinitive, dynamic and immersive experiential spaces, which further the extension and integrality of the architecture. Complemented by arch-shaped landscapes, the arch-shaped facade showcases the vigour of the city.
Sustainability
As the cultural symbols of the landmark building in the community, the overhangs posed great challenges to construction techniques. The overhangs adopted modular assembly methods, and the curve of each standard overhang was made of 5 different materials.
The project utilized aluminium boards with different hues such as champagne gold, light gray and dark gray, perforated aluminium panels with an aperture ratio of 20%, as well as aluminium profiles. In addition, spray coating were applied to some parts, to enhance corrosion-resistance and ageing-resistance performances, avoid fading, discoloring, cracking and prolong the duration. The champagne-gold aluminium grilles and ultra-clear low-E glass help enhance the daylighting of the interior space and reduce energy consumption as well.
Architecture - International
This award celebrates the design process and product of planning, designing and constructing form, space and ambience that reflect functional, technical, social, and aesthetic considerations. Consideration given for material selection, technology, light and shadow.
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