-
Architects: CUC·ZOYO
- Area: 22091 m²
- Year: 2018
-
Photographs:TEAM AOGVISION, Zhiyi Architecture
Text description provided by the architects. Liangzhu Heritage site has successfully made into the World Cultural Heritage list on July the 6th,2019. During the extensive qualification process, the post in-depth research capability as an important criterion has risen the standards of correspondent modern facilities as a solid platform. Renovating the existing industrial facilities in the core of the site has not only the benefit of compressing the construction time to meet investigation schedules for the World Heritage List application, but also providing a solution for the project to site as close to the core as possible without potential massive soil excavation. The site, Zhonglian Huaneng is located south to Mojiaoshan Palace ruins, adjacent to the south entrance of the Heritage Reserve and Liangzhu museum. They will serve as an on-site workstation which thrives to witness and participate in the coming excavation and research.
The general concept emerges from a levitating jade patio, of whose validity roots in the site, the history, the tectonics and a common ground forged by all who are involved in the world heritage list application. The antique texture of jade reflects the desolated atmosphere of a time-forsaken ruin, evoking memories from the past with virtues refined by age. As years pass by, dust and stain on the surface of jade, as well as growing shadows of vegetation will add extra layers of precipitation to the project.
With the limited construction schedule being the greatest challenge for the project, the team chooses rectilinear forms as the tectonic approach which denotes unified module, concise structure joints and minimal irregular parts. In this case the façades require only partial demolition while the volumes join as a gestalt and all building components come prefabricated and standardized.
A streamlined functional layout with high efficiency is the end goal of our project. The original eight factories varied in ages and structures. The possibility that they might be situated on the remains of the ancient bauxite walls leads to strict restrictions on the excavation for the foundation. Despite all the difficulties, the scheme manages to allocate six major functions, namely conference, data monitoring, laboratories, operation support, dormitory and relic warehouse, into various units to make full use of the original layout and volume and minimize the foundation construction and duration of archaeological intervention.
It is our belief that building façades should bear practical functions which play with light and shadow. The main material of choice must exceed at delivering potential significance and customizing transparency ratio so that interior lighting dissolves evenly while sight permeability is negated for confidential archaeology studies inside. In this case, the design team tried a ceramic ink printing glass technique to achieve continuous texture design and customizable translucency attributes.
With the properties of surface reflectivity and layered mineral structure of natural jade, it hardly suffices to replicate them with lasing scanning or high-resolution photography, nor to find out a continuous texture that matches the scale of a multistory building. Thus, the team chooses to draw our own ‘jade’. The designing procedure can be best described as creating an ink painting on a translucent jade paper, on which ink trails trace and render with simplicity and ambiguity. The jade is composed half of reality and half of poetry. It fuses sky and cloud in a desolate atmosphere blending into the site with a dramatic gesture that reflects the surrounding context. The texture, while continuous and fluid as streaming water, has its flaws and imperfect sediments with clear traces of discrete fissures and veins under a closer observation.
Our team gradually masters the technique of texture painting with a superimposing approach to realize the desired concept in a consecutive process of template experiments. To start with, the foundation is a milky white base with a 50% transmittance to set the tone and blur the boundaries of building and built environment. The layer that follows presents the primary texture of a dark brown sediment pattern inspired from marble with mineral impurities that is continuous and intact on each side of the building envelope. Lastly the top layer mimics the underlying mineral structure of what real jade possesses. The discrete and randomly repetitive veins and rippled sediment gift the material an authentic physical texture of jade.
Based on an in depth survey aiming at the staff of the archaeology research center in regards to their educational background and atmosphere preference, the interior design utilizes a selection of warm and soothing timberwork in a traditional and nostalgic Chinese tectonic and express the industrial aesthetics which highlights the sheer existence of volume and structure only on the outside envelope. A portion of the loft space are floored and turned into mini cinema and café for the staff to spend their leisure time.
