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Architects: AESEU Architectural Technology and Art studio
- Area: 1800 m²
- Year: 2021
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Photographs:Timeraw Studio
Text description provided by the architects. In 2019, ATA design team received the task of designing a toll station for Tangshan Interchange of Shanghai-Chengdu Expressway. As the most important transportation hub in the east of Nanjing, the owner hopes to show the image of Tangshan as the "East Gateway of Nanjing" through the shed of Tangshan Interchange, and it is also an important node for the peripheral transportation organization of the 2021 Jiangsu Garden Expo Park.
Audience group, value, and viewing way. In view of safety, economy, and functionality, transportation facilities such as toll shed usually adopt standardized styles and sheds usually adopt large-span steel structures to meet the traffic needs of lanes. Pillars are set as supporting structures on toll islands or at both ends of stations, and the roofing materials are mostly metal profiled plates or membrane materials. Each toll station is identified with a different station name to show its difference. Standardized structural components can effectively reduce the construction cost and ensure the reliability of the structure. In recent years, highways have improved the comfort and experience of drivers and passengers by building special service areas, and local governments also regard highway exits as the display of the local image, so they have higher requirements for the form of toll station sheds.
Generally, the way to improve the image of the toll shed is to do some two-dimensional modeling on the facade of the shed to meet the perspective of normal pedestrians. But is it applicable to drivers and passengers on expressways? These are the three points that need to be made clear in design, which are Audience group, value, and viewing way. For drivers, station name signs, lane signs, toll deduction signs and gate bars need to be paid attention to first when driving. The modeling of the station shed and the space under the shed are more focused on the overall space perception than the detailed modeling. Passengers in the rear row look at the outside from the side windows. Therefore, the probability of observing the space under the shed is higher than that of the facade of the shed. Because the manual toll collection channel is set by the outside road, drivers and passengers will have more opportunities to observe the shed from the lower side while waiting in line. According to these line-of-sight analyses, large-scale physical features and regular spatial language are more likely to impress people than complex transformed concrete images. Therefore, how to shape the space under the shed and extend people's experience from two-dimensional facades to three-dimensional spaces provides a new thinking aspect for design.
Standardization and locality. From the perspective of economy and safety, the use of standardized steel members to build large-span structure selection is in line with the identifying characteristics of toll sheds as transportation facilities. Therefore, grid structure and truss structure are the mainstream of structural forms, and columns are often supported at the four corners and the middle according to different spans. However, standardized industrial components are easy to appear monotonous due to their lack of changes, and it is difficult to show their characteristics, especially how to show the local characteristics of buildings, which is a difficult problem faced by architects.
The locality of architecture is not a static concept but coexists with the contemporariness of architecture. The humanities, history, and topography around the site are of course the local characteristics of the building, but the current construction technology level, the difficulty of obtaining materials, and the cost constraints under the expressway system are also the local elements of the building in the contemporary context.
In this project, the design team tries to find a balance between the standardization and richness of the structure and uses the expressive force of the structure itself to present the localization characteristics of the building. The design team adopted the structure of the bifurcated support ‘column & folded’ plate roof. The bifurcated support column consists of standard steel bars supported vertically and obliquely in the plane. The roof is a space folded plate structure composed of cross beams. The interface dimensions of the inclined steel support bars are divided into three categories, which are smaller and smaller according to the stress characteristics, and finally connected with the roof beams.
Considering the unobstructed line of sight and the safety of vehicle traffic, the bifurcated support column is arranged in the upper space of the toll island but does not enter the upper space of the driveway. The standard steel brace forms different cross column forms through different combinations, and the cross column is in different positions on different toll station islands. In this way, the space under the shed is rich in structural and physical changes, and these changes are more attractive to observe at low speed. The skylight on the roof allows natural light to enter the shadow area under the shed, making the space bright and full of layers, which draws on the impression of the hall space where guests are received in traditional buildings. Its purpose is to make tourists feel like ‘passing through the hall into the inner chamber’ when they pass through the tool shed, and the opposite view of the shed is the main mountain range of Tangshan, hence named ‘The shed with mountain view’.
At night, the light-receiving surface and the light-receiving surface are reversed, the folded roof is illuminated from below, the grid of repeated array strengthens the twists and turns of the roof, and the bifurcated supporting columns in the light are visually staggered and overlapped, so the shed is as impressive as a temple in the forest.
Detail nodes. When using structure as the element of spatial expression, an important principle is that each component truly reflects its stress characteristics and each structure plays its role. For example, the size change of section steel of cross column from bottom to top corresponds to the change of bending moment, the tension rod is clear at a glance, the web areas of the cross columns and beams are closed by aluminum plates, which is used as a bridge box for cables. However, on the one hand, the purpose of exposing the structure at the intersection node is to facilitate the daily maintenance of bolts, and on the other hand, is to realize the crossing of cables here.
When we chase the ambitious curve modeling created by computer algorithms, the method of analyzing the basic problems of architecture by using the basic means of design is still applicable in traditional architecture. It can also create a building space with controllable cost, practical function, and profound influence with the publicly available materials and simple and reliable construction.
