In the Chinese province of Jiangsu, within the catchment area of Shanghai, lies the city of Changzhou which, with its about 5 million inhabitants, has developed into an important industrial metropolis in the Yangtze Delta region. In the newly created city center of Changzhou, the architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp) have created a cultural center with an art museum, library, hotel, offices, and retail areas. gmp won the international competition with a design that generates a spatially diverse urban landscape with buildings and a public park. With this concept, the Changzhou Culture Plaza has become a symbolic and unmistakable new public center of Changzhou.
Project: New city center for Changzhou Culture Plaza
Location: Changzhou, China
Design: Meinhard von Gerkan and Nikolaus Goetze with Magdalene Weiss
Project Lead: Competition Kong Buhong, Martin Friedrich
Competition Team: Dominika Gnatowicz, Sebastian Schmidt, Yao Yao, Jiang Lanlan
Project Lead Detailed Design: Kong Buhong, Fan Xiaodi, Chen Ying, Detailed Design Team Ralf Donner, Martin Friedrich, Alex C. Fu, Huang Meng, Ren Peiying, Gao Shusan, Wang Zexin, Wang Xi, Sevde Erdogan
Project Management China: Cai Lei, Sa Xiaodong
Client: Changzhou Jinling Investment and Construction Co., Ltd.
The Bamboo Office is one of the winners of the “1st International Design Building Competition”, promoted by the “Chinese Sustainable Design Centre” and the “China New Building Materials Design & Research Institute”. Barberio Colella ARC, in collaboration with Angelo Figliola, designed The Bamboo Office, a proposal in which architectural, bioclimatic and environmental aspects converge. The main goal of the design is to connect future employers with nature. This means that people inside the building can constantly perceive the passage of time and the flow of seasons during the year. In this way, who works inside the building or visits it can feel the synergistic relationship between architecture and nature.This object is pursued thanks to different architectural and natural devices. First, a double skin facade, which allows the optimal bioclimatic behaviour of the building during the different seasons, permitting the heat to enter during the summer and the cool air to penetrate inside the building in a passive manner, using benefits of natural ventilation. Inside the double skin facade, there is the “bamboo line”, which consents to control and optimize the glare amount, while permits the light to enter inside the building a diffuse way. The bamboo line also creates all around the building the sensation to work surrounded by nature, potentially reaching the maximum level of mental and physical comfort. Plus, an “inner green space” permits employers and visitors to live the green space not only inside the building but also outside it, creating an outdoor lounge area. This area is surrounded by high bamboo plants which shades the South side of the building during the summer, protecting the same from wind during the winter.
The project is located in Changzhou which has been one of the major towns in Jiangnan (the south of the Yangtze River) since ancient times. It maintains people’s hope for life and spiritual relations to Jiangnan-style architecture. Two major limitations can be found in this design. First, since it is located among high buildings, usable land is limited. Second, the functions of a sales center should be fulfilled and then it will be transformed into a community center. With these two limitations, the designer reconsidered the relationship between building and the land and then decided to design a demonstration area by starting from “Jiangnan-style habitats”. Jiangnan-style habitats have two aspects. First, it creates residential buildings. Jiangnan-style habitats consist of the roof, well and wall. Second, it also refers to Jiangnan gardens that are both house and garden.
Dongqi Architects transformed and enlarged an old café into a new space with coffee, craft beer、food and bakery in the downtown of Changzhou.
The interior space is an overall “L” shape space. Coffee, craft beer and bakery zones take places separately in the three corners of the “L”. Coffee and craft beer zone have white ceilings and floors，and the bakery zone is a space with black covered all surfaces. The black and white spaces is divided by the curvy ceiling edge and steel wire. The heights of the ceilings on the two sides are different which not only differentiate the spaces according to their functions, but also naturally merge the old space and the new space together into an indivisible whole.
The architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp) have been awarded first prize in the international competition to build the Culture Center in the newly created Changzhou city center – competing against KSP – Jürgen Engel Architects, Arata Isozaki and other leading practices. With a total floor area of 365,000 square metres, the building in this city of three million, between Wuxi and Nanjing, is six times the size of the Louvre in Paris. The new building complex includes a number of museums such as an arts museum, a science and technology museum and a library, together with service facilities supporting the center for culture in the Xinbei district of the city.
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