Image Credit : Laurian Ghinitoiu & Foster + Partners (Visualisations)
Project Overview
Inspired by traditional Chinese theatres, the three-storey building features a curtain-like facade of bronze tubes. These tubes hang in three layers, creating semi-transparent screens in front of windows and balconies. This layered facade is described as "a moving veil, which adapts to the changing use of the building, and reveals the stage on the balcony and views towards Pudong" by the architects.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Heatherwick Studios / Foster + Partners
Team
Foster + Partners
Heatherwick Studio
Martha Schwartz Partners
East China Architectural Design & Research Institute
Project Brief
Occupying a prominent site on the Bund, the buildings define the ‘end point’ to Shanghai’s most famous street. The design conceived as a point of connection between the old and new; sitting between the old town and the new financial district. "In filling this last empty site on Shanghai’s famous Bund, the concept is inspired by China’s ambition not to duplicate what exists in the rest of the world but to look instead for new ways to connect with China’s phenomenal architectural and landscape heritage”.
Project Innovation/Need
The building is encircled by a moving veil, which adapts to the changing use of the building and reveals the stage on the balcony and views towards the famed Pudong. This Veil sees 3 individual layers of bronze tubing, circle the building in a staggered manner, creating a semi translucent veil effect.
Design Challenge
The mechanical movement behind 'the veil' was engineered by the East China Architectural Design & Research Institute (ECADI). They have provided architectural, structural, and M&E engineering services to the whole project.
Architecture - Public and Institutional
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.
More Details