Project Overview

The project is located in the Sitaizi section at the intersection of Linghe Street and South Wenda Road, Huanggu District, Shenyang City. It is the northern core of the north-south urban axis, and it is also the future focus of the development of Huanggu District. This densely populated and habitable section is positioned as a high-end living area in the north, and the design team started from here. Aiming at Shenyang’s first "health + humanities" artistic life theater, architects have integrated the investment culture, rose culture and Shengjing culture, and innovatively design a cultural life theater and cultural art museum with local characteristics. With the concept of "Five Health +" integrated into the community, the design has combined a hotel-style lobby entrance, three functional axes, multi-functional outdoor meeting spaces and multi-functional venues to create a new multi-dimensional living community.

Organisation

HZS

Team

Li Jianfei, Cai Guanhua, Zhang Minglei, Zhang Yafeng, Wu Jundong, Li Ruixue, Yao Jian

Project Brief

Urban renewal refers not to simply replacing the old with the new, but to constantly explore new urban functions on the basis of existing ones. the design team hopes to trace the history by reorganizing and integrating the existing space, so that it can be integrated into the present and future urban development. Therefore, architects first reshaped the social nodes as the material basis and space carrier for the formation and development of the social network in the old city. In order to avoid the dull and depressing feeling of traditional communities, architects adopted a transparent, continuous and collaborative open layout to free and activate the atmosphere of the entire area. When people gather, communicate, and engage in thought collisions here, the space comes alive.

Project Innovation/Need

Architects designed an open art corridor to reshape the social nodes and show the beautiful appearance of the city after renewal. Through the hotel lobby-style entrance, open meeting space, multi-functional venue, theme leisure garden, four-season sports ring, and multi-dimensional space in front of the house, architects have emphasized the freedom, openness, and vitality of this community, enlivened the living atmosphere, and promoted neighbor relations. The addition of zigzag elements breaks the dull and depressing impression of traditional communities, and highlights the freedom and openness of this red brick-style modern community, which is in line with the lifestyle of modern people. The cross axis with the theme of “landscape & life" in the middle of the plot covers the most important way home for the residents and the vitality center of community life. Architects set the content of community services on the interface along the street, rather than embedded in the community, to restore the true and vivid appearance of urban life.

Design Challenge

The scheme is centered on "city and courtyard". With modern and minimalist design techniques, architects have created a unique spatial feeling of alternating virtual and real, stretched and simple, and improved the interactivity of the urban interface. As a result, the modern architectural language has been transformed into a "window of the city" with a unique sense of identity. At corner space nodes with dense traffic, architects used interspersed blocks to break the dull feeling brought by a large number of red brick surfaces with light and protruding glass curtains, and injected agility into stability. On the building surface, two layers of glass form a huge overhang of 6 meters along the city street corner; the first floor retreats to make room for the mirrored water landscape.

The U-shaped glass endowed with ritual significance brings the residents into the courtyard space leading to their home, realizing the transformation from two dimensions to three dimensions. Such a multi-level boundary between the courtyard and the urban area outside guides the spatial streamline. In the part along the street, architects have formed a visually tense architectural form through structural features such as stilts, stacked shifts, and one-way overhangs. On the second floor, a large area of U-shaped glass forms a void volume, which is combined with the shape of the aluminum plate to outline a light and suspended architectural image. Inside the courtyard, small and easy-to-move landscapes can be easily pushed, combined and collaged into pleasant scenes.

Sustainability

After optimizing orientation and volume, architects minimized environmental impact through innovative design, creating a sustainable building with a distinctive appearance. Low-flow taps, toilets and rainwater harvesting reduce the building’s water consumption. The combination of the building’s airtight outer skin and the triple-glazed inner skin provides excellent thermal insulation; the inwardly concave and outwardly protruding flow forms increase the surface area for daylighting and viewing. The concave-convex structural frame of the façade shades the glass walls, and the size, inclination and density of the scallops vary according to the orientation and sunlight exposure. While adding visual dimension and rhythm to the building, they also form part of the natural ventilation system.