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Architects: UAO Design
- Area: 3195 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:Ran Jia, Yilong Zhao
Text description provided by the architects. At the beginning of 2020, a sudden epidemic resulted in the closure of Wuhan. After the people of Wuhan persisted in fighting the epidemic and the strong support of the people of the whole country, a few months later, Wuhan reopened and everything slowly went to normal. In September, my friend Mi Yangwen approached me, hoping to help design a temporary market "Yolechang2020" for free. The purpose is to implement the revitalization plan of the old neighborhood through this public welfare design activity and at the same time boost confidence in resuming work and production. I readily agreed, because, during the lockdown period, I also thought about using my own design power to do some charity design after the epidemic to help Wuhan and give back to society;
The location of the temporary market is located on the central square of "Pinghefang" in the century-old historical building cluster, which was designed by us. This is an excellent site where historical buildings gather together: the 115-year-old Pinghe Packing Factory site is on the south side; the 127-year-old Orthodox Church is on the north; the 107-year-old Lutz’s house is on the east; The first highway tunnel across the Yangtze River is right below the central square. The classical clock tower on the south side of the square is actually the ventilation shaft of the Yangtze River tunnel.
The relatively new buildings on this site have been demolished during the construction of the tunnel in 2004-2008, and new buildings directly above the tunnel are no longer allowed; as an above-ground supporting space for urban transportation facilities, it is passive and closed, and not frequently used by the public; our initial landscape design plan was to create a central square with enclosed corridors, hoping to connect different buildings of different ages on the site through the corridors, and use the corridors to create stays; this landscape plan eventually was not realized, only the central hard plaza was retained, and different design strategies were adopted to create a small environment in different surrounding areas, such as stepped green spaces. The empty square in the center reserved the possibility for the multi-functional use of the composite space later.
The predecessor of the Pinghe Packing Factory on the south side of the square was an industrial building located in the English Concession of Hankou. It functions as a cotton packing warehouse and was built by the British businessman Liddell brothers in 1905; when we designed the indoor public space of the Pinghe Packing Factory two years ago, It also hopes to increase the publicity of this area; Party A hopes to convert this industrial building into a cultural and creative office function. We use the newly implanted modern material "steel plate" to blacken it to wrap the walls of key new public spaces. The building materials and texture of the old building are retained, forming a juxtaposition of old and new materials at the same time and space.
This "juxtaposition" logically continued to the design of this market. What kind of market do we need on the surrounding square surrounded by three-hundred-year-old ancient buildings? The first thing I think of is the "sense of the times". The more modern, the stronger the contrast with the surrounding classical atmosphere. The juxtaposition of modern components and classical buildings in contrast increases the attractiveness of the site, thereby achieving more open and multi-functional publicity.
In the selection of construction materials, taking into account the outdoor durability and the rainy conditions in Wuhan, the practice of building individual shops with conventional wooden structures was first ruled out; the "Yolechang2020" market lasts relatively longer than ordinary markets, From the opening on September 19 to the three weekends of the National Day on October 1, so it must be stable, anti-theft, and rain-proof; and no need to move around on working days when there is no market in the middle. After three weeks, the market was disbanded. Considering this "temporary nature", I decided to use scaffolding as a construction site material to build the market.
Scaffolding is cheap to rent and easy to build. Three skilled workers on site completed all the structures in eight hours; we designed 2X2X2 meter unit modules as each shop unit; there are 4 meters and 6 meters high towers locally, using Translucent grid cloth form eye-catching floating boxes at high altitudes, which are vividly called "Kongming lanterns" by the workers. What I care about is the floating feeling brought by its transparent texture, just like the floating red box designed by UAO in the Hongfang ADC showroom.
Taking into account the convenience of actual construction and reducing the number of processing, during the construction process, the original top rain tarpaulin in each unit was modified and integrated into a long rain tarpaulin covering the top of a longitudinal strip as a whole; The scaffolding steel pipes are fixed with the same material cloth strip tying mode, the reason is that it is convenient, and the second is that it reflects the tension characteristics of the material of the rain tarpaulin.
The rain tarpaulin is made of blue, and the top "kongming lantern" and the scaffolding steel pipe spray paint are orange. The two contrasting colors have a strong visual appeal; and the theme neon light is pink to highlight the LOGO.
The top lighting adopts the aluminum alloy ceiling keel commonly used in households, which just accommodates a common fluorescent tube; the LED light strip adopts the uninterrupted "己" shape surround mode, which is also an emergency good way on the spot to reduce the workload of workers, and rapid the construction, and reduce lights with joints.
The layout of the market adopts a three-vertical and three-horizon pattern. The vertical bars are shops, and the horizontal bars are functional connection modules: entrances and exits, connection corridors, and stage VIP canopies; the inner street enclosed by the shops is 4-6 meters in size, The scale of the inner street is strengthened by the 4m or 6m high "Kongming Lantern".
A two-story "street art gallery" was built on the lawn of the large landscape ladder with scaffolding and oriented strand board, with an art scale of 4.8X4.8X2.4, with a ladder leading to the roof platform, and a transparent box above the platform. "Kong Ming Lantern".
The Street Art Museum has exhibited small art exhibitions on different themes for three consecutive weeks. In the propaganda words of the organizer, this is the Wuhan version of the "Snake Gallery". Although it is small, it reflects the original intention of the market: public welfare, which is acting to boost confidence in resuming work and production.
