-
Interior Designers: Fanzhu Design
- Area: 200 m²
- Year: 2021
-
Photographs:Arch-Exist
-
Lead Architect: Zixun Zhong
Project Brief. Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li Chengdu is the most important commercial complex in Chengdu, and also a very representative open commercial block in China. Since its opening in 2014, it has become a shopping and fashion landmark in Chengdu. The project base "Yucheng Street" is located in the southeast of Taikoo Li. It is about 150 meters long, 5.1 meters at the narrowest point and 7.4 meters at the widest point. Before the renovation, Yucheng Street was separated from Taikoo Li by a section of the wall. For many years, one side of the wall has been the busiest commercial street in the city, and the other side is the old residential quarters and scattered small shops.
Original Intention of Design. The barrier of the wall forms a 150m-long "urban fault", and Yucheng Street looks even dimmer against the prosperous background, as if it stays in a longer time, or has been forgotten by the city. During the six years from 2014 to 2020, with the rise of Taikoo Li, the original 11 shops on Yucheng Street changed hands several times, and some interesting shops gradually emerged. However, a series of negative factors, such as the existence of the wall, the disorder of the pipe network, and the dilapidated street surface, restrict the continuous renewal and development of Yucheng Street. The original intention of the design is to break the barrier of the wall, improve the basic conditions of the street, provide appropriate commercial space and introduce rich business forms, so as to continue and stimulate the vitality of the city and provide opportunities and possibilities for the continuous spontaneous renewal and development of Yucheng Street.
Design Strategy. According to the site conditions, we put forward three basic transformation measures: renovation, rectification, and temporary construction. "Refurbishment" aimed at the facade of original residential buildings: adding a canopy, rearranging pipelines, and painting the exterior wall; The "rectification" is aimed at the original street surface: the ground under the pipe network, the addition of supporting facilities, and the pavement; "Temporary construction" adds temporary Spaces that can be operated and experienced in local constructible areas. The 150m long street has a width of 5.1m ~ 7.4m. Apart from the 4m wide fire lane that needs to be reserved, the site for temporary construction is only 1.1m ~ 3.4m. The architectural design is like the Chinese idiom "stick in a pin wherever there's room", similar to the "Jinshan" technique used in porcelain restoration. The new and old urban atmosphere is firmly sewed together by a continuous adhesive belt of 150 meters, 1.1 meters to 3.4 meters, forming a complete interactive space environment.
Prefabricated Box. The principle of temporary construction design is continuous, participation and assembly. Continuity to ensure that there is a long enough contact surface between the old and new environment, can carry the business content to be introduced, and provide enough rich consumption scenarios; Participation to ensure that the continuous interface will not appear monotonous, the use of segmented enlarged space or pocket landscape design, so that more passers-by can rest and stay; Assembly to ensure the fast speed and accuracy of site construction, design to provide processing, installation node diagram, prefabricated box in the factory, trial assembly group. The prefabricated box has no structural foundation and can be disassembled and moved to reduce the damage to the dense urban pipe network under the road.
Pocket Landscape. According to the urban building texture and road pattern, the following parts are determined as the enlarged landscape nodes: block entrance; Taikoo Li Pedestrian Channel Node; The main entrance and exit of the residential district; A narrow area difficult to construct. The design of landscape nodes abandons the environmental design mode based on greening and pavement, and more props such as tables and stools can be used and participated in the design. Through the careful arrangement of investment attraction operation by the entrant, situational business forms such as DJ station, pop-up shop and flower shop are arranged near each node, so that the partially enlarged space can be integrated into the long street by taking advantage of the scenery and potential. People's business activities become the extension of the visual and behavioral experience of the pocket landscape.
Rhythmic Tube Body. The 4-meter-wide street surface needs to be reserved for fire trucks and community vehicles, and no structures can be placed within this area. In order to solve the problem of an empty and boring street surface, we used a steel pipe with a diameter of 15 centimeters to carry out the environmental design. The rhythmic tube body forms the entrance porch, landscape wall, and temporary seating of Yucheng Street. The upper part of the tube body is reserved for hanging lamps and lanterns, which can be hung with different decorations or devices according to different scene needs.
Spontaneous Richness. Our work is to improve the urban environment of this small section of Yucheng Street, which needs to be followed up from concept to implementation. At the same time, we don't want to create a solid scene with no development because of the design and arrangement. The aforementioned sense of participation and variability in a spatial composition is one of the ways to avoid indifference and negativity in design. Another way is to make the convenient implementation of the management and decoration guidelines, in order to ensure the overall effect of the street shop in the process of development, reserved signs, interiors, stalls, to provide personalized space for the entered stores, support multiple, individual decoration scheme. From the actual operation situation of the open street, the independent decoration of the store owners provides the essence of diversity and richness for Yucheng street. The spontaneous creativity of more than 30 old and new store owners on Yucheng street will become the foundation of the continuous renewal and sustained vitality of Yucheng street. We are very happy that our design can be used by more people and continue to have stronger vitality in the process of its form dissolution.
