- Area: 4192 m²
- Year: 2010
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Photographs:Chen Jun Wei
Text description provided by the architects. On 2009 COFCO (China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation) Tianjin Group organized a competition for its Tianjin showroom. The brief called for facilities of a real estate sale house and a wine display club, offering a wine taste room for COFCO's own brand -The Great Wall red wine.
Locate at the junctions of two main streets, the winning scheme response to the grid city by an orthogonal folding structure, creating a dramatic image for the city.
Visitors are invited to the site via an intimate front plaza, arriving at the entrance lobby. Through a series of display areas and informal meeting places, the space sequence forms a spiral route from ground floor to the upper floors, creating interesting spatial experience around the central atrium. The final climax of the journey is COFCO'S wine tasting room, located on a 15metre cantilever space on level 2, overlooking Tianjin's mother river, the Hai River.
COFCO's brand image is also reflected on the detail design for the facade system. Each curtain wall unit is fabricated in hexagon shape with fritted pattern which is the architecture version for COFCO's company logo .Two layers of the glass improve the thermal performance of the external wall, also allow artistic lighting devices install in between. The dual layer of fritted patterns creates dynamic effects when pedestrian's viewpoint moving across the facade.
The building is a fine contribution to Tianjin's cityscape, by its strong concept, careful articulation as well as high quality construction finishes.
