-
Architects: AZL Architects
- Area: 3000 m²
- Year: 2010
-
Photographs:Yao Li
Text description provided by the architects. The Northstar Changsha Delta project lies on a one square kilometer site with a large-scale urban development project occupying more than five million square meters of construction. Located east of the Xiangjiang River and south of the Liuyanghe River, the project will transform the landscape and shape the future development of north Changsha. The Exhibition Hall is the first built project of Northstar’s ambitious plan, It contributes to the social and economic development of the region; recoding its implementation process while fulfilling the programmatic business and sales objectives of the development.
The form of the Exhibition Hall comes from two tilted cubes, providing diverging vertical and horizontal spatial experiences. The layout and site are codependent, with the Exhibition Hall at its base leading to the Xiangjiang River. Such a geometric relationship between the forms and the expansive riverfront connote the region's ever improving quality of life.
The Exhibition Hall faces mainly to the rapidly developing west bank of the Xiangjiang River. This requires sun shading from the western sun in the hot summer. The LED media wall stands in direct contradiction with the fundamental idea of creating a waterfront view to the river, which was solved by the use of acrylic in the elevation. Oblique acrylic panels did not affect line of sight and could be used for shading, and could house LED lights. The other three facades employ Corten steel to create volumes, supporting western orientation translucently.
Geometric contrasts between the oblique internal space and orthogonal external volumes shape the user's experience. Translucent surfaces against weathered steel further reinforce the contrast in vocabularies.
