Text description provided by the architects. The total construction scale of the Canal Vanke Centre is about 360,000 square meters, which is the third Vanke Center of Vanke Hangzhou. With five towers behind, this small building of less than 2,000 sq.ms is the most important activator along the 600-meter long axis of the public space. As innovation and experience center, it revolves Automobile-Internet industries. With unique space and diverse contents, it builds a new scenery of experience and drives the future of the auto-industry. It can be described as Small Building with Great Capacities.
This is a building that cars can drive along a continuous ramp till to the roofs and will become a super show in Hangzhou. We found a key which opens endless imaginations of everyone involved!
Promenade Architecture
With circling ramps, roof show, grand stairs, continuous stair system etc., two paths outside and inside of the building, we re-explain the classic time and space idea of modernism architecture, Promenade Architecture.
Ramps
The building is located at the southeast corner of the site along the street. Its east side and north side are respectively supported by the planned road (the main motorized traffic path of the first phase project) and the underground parking entrance. Its west side and south side face the central square and the central axis. The ramp spirals counterclockwise along the eastern side of the north circle and winds up to the north roof, which is the first outdoor show space. It continues clockwise along the eastern side of the south circle up to the south roof, which is the second outdoor show space. A grand stairs connects thees two roofs and integrate the entire roof into a super show and amphitheatre.
This first Promenade path circles along the outskirts of the building with ramps and roofs. The ramp serves the car during festivals, and is returned to the people in daily mode.
Stairs
On the west side of the south circle, we open a wedge-shaped space and insert a dramatic orange staircase, which absorbs people on the plaza into the building, and upstairs.
Inside, a continuous orange staircase connecting underground floor and above in an atrium form the second Promenade path. People and cars move inside or outside, staggering or meeting……It is not only spaces showing cars, but also spaces experiencing architecture and the city also.
Façade: curtain wall unit
Facade between ramp and ground, ramp and floor: Zigzag-shaped unit. The façade between the horizontal floors: gear-shaped unit. Ramp and roof glass slab: curved glass. Beam coatings: The double-layered aluminum plates form a continuous spiral streamer.
Staircase: With perforated and orange aluminum panels, this bold and sculptural staircases impress visitors deeply, perform a visual focus inside of the building, and guide people up and down.
See and be seen
when you pass by, whether driving or walking, day or night, your eyes cannot miss this perfect-shaped, shinning, flowing and twisting building. Walking into it, hovering up the ramp ( or down), stepping on the stairs, you find that your eyes are no longer concerned with the building itself, but strolling to the outside, the city.
Just as Roland Barthes commented in The Eiffel Tower, this building combines the experience of the building itself and the urban space outside. It is an object which sees, a glance which is seen.
