Following an international competition, MVRDV has been selected to lead the design of the Hangzhou Oil Refinery Factory Park, an extensive project aiming to transform the former industrial district into a cultural center set in a green environment. Complete with a new art and science museum, offices, retail, and a wide variety of cultural offerings, the redevelopment demonstrates a way forward from an oil-based infrastructure to more sustainable alternatives, while retaining the memory of the past technologies. The park sits alongside the southern end of China’s Grand Canal, the world’s longest and one of the oldest man-made waterways created to strengthen economic connections between the south and the north of the country.
The roughly 18-hectare site, formerly occupied by an oil refinery, represents a typical development for the Grand Canal. After the closing of the factory, several structures were demolished, but some large refinery buildings and oil storage drums remain on site. MVRDV’s intervention, developed in collaboration with Openfabric, aims to demonstrate the potential of industrial-to-cultural transformations. To further emphasize this transition from fossil fuels to sustainable energy, the park also integrates a large number of renewable energy sources.
A new Art and Sci-tech Center is designed to become the new centerpiece of the park. Its cylindrical shape is inspired by the silos which once defined the image of the site. The complex interior form houses a circular exhibition hall and an off-kilter stag of rectangular boxes housing artists’ studios, offices, and commercial spaces. A series of terraces connected by bridges create a dynamic environment where performances, large-scale installations, and events can take place. The permeable façade allows breezes to penetrate the structure, as the interior space is heated and cooled passively. The LED cladding also transforms the façade into a media outlet, while photovoltaic spots on the façade, designed with a parametric approach to maximize sunlight exposure, generate energy for the museum.
In the remainder of the park, existing structures and kept and adapted to become offices or retail spaces. New structures are also introduced, keeping the same dimensions as the existing ones, but built with glass and photovoltaic spots similar to the museum’s façade. A cluster of new office buildings is planned for the southeast side of the park, completing the image of the master plan.
As a planet, we know we need to move on from oil on a massive scale. But that raises the question, what should we do with all this infrastructure that was created? It is somehow, at the same time, tempting to make a clean break with history, and romantic to imagine a future where we build upon the ruins of the past. With this project, we do both: we incorporate the old industrial structures, while newly built elements – which are clearly distinguishable from the old – show us a better, more sustainable future. The old ‘fossils’ turn into energetic drums. - MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas
The park is designed to become energy-neutral in operation and to contribute energy to the grid by transforming regular building surfaces into energy generators. The refinery towers are also integrated into the park’s landscape, while the many silos in various states of degradation are reintegrated in a multitude of ways, some reconstructed, transformed, or merely suggested by circles in the pavement where they originally stood.
The park’s natural elements are designed as a parametric forest, with criteria such as a species’ contribution to shading the surroundings, food production, or biodiversity algorithmically determining its placement in the park’s forest landscape; a new symbiosis - MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas
On a similar note, MVRDV has also recently won a competition to design the Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence Campus (IPAI) in Heilbronn, Germany, with the purpose of creating a world-leading research site for developing AI technologies. In Nijmegen, Netherlands, MVRDV also leads the design of the master plan for the Noviotech Campus, a scheme that aims to reduce the carbon footprint of the intervention by integrating existing buildings on site. The Rotterdam-based office has also received planning approval for its first project in Uruguay, a 15-story residential building in Montevideo.
