2022 | Professional

MUSE Design Awards Gold Winner

Shaoxing Chaichangnong Refurbishment & Urban Redevelopment

Entrant Company

SpActrum

Category

Architectural Design - Urban Design

Client's Name

Kaiyuan Mitu

Country / Region

China

Shaoxing Chaichangnong Refurbishment & Urban Redevelopment Project is located in the historic old town of Shaoxing. The town comprises various buildings of several distinct eras and styles. The project aims to pursue the complexity of the site by blending different eras with new buildings and to reinvent the site by organizing visual and physical experiences in a lively context. Sometimes the existing space becomes an element of the new, changing the spatial definition. Rebirth of the old and coexistence with the new are key features of the site.



Existing buildings have to be read as equivalent-substitution for bare ground, rather than as buildings on the site in a typical figure-background relationship. The buildings and sites exchange their identities. Sometimes ruins of the buildings turn their insides out, and sometimes they join with the new. The Dazhou Atelier was a warehouse built in the 1990s and converted into a painting studio. Xingyu (Star Observation Building) is the major part of the new build. It replaces the old highest building on the exact same location. Its platforms wind up all the way to the top floor, creating multiple layers of sites and extensive social spaces. A boutique hotel is born out of a collection of 80s social housing blocks and a bunch of small, self-built buildings at the southwest corner. These new buildings are not just determined to be themselves, but amplifiers and sense-making devices for the site.



Site density can be high, as the streets are narrow and have a sense of enclosure. Thus, a raised walkway is implemented to connect roof spaces. It is a pedestrian highway and offers viewpoints over the conservation courtyard. Moreover, it’s a space shuttle traveling through the past, present and future of the Chaichangnong District.



Both new and old will therefore lose their associated meanings of time and style. They purely inter-communicate through form and spatial configurations, bringing new meanings through users’ human perceptions and physical experiences. The building vanishes, the SITE emerges. Such vivid composite sites interplay and connect with people. That is the future of cities.

Credits

Beijing CCI Architectural Design CO. LTD
Construction Design
AT. AART Design
Lighting Design
PHOOO Design
Landscape Design
Beijing Tsinghua Tongheng Urban Planning & Design Institute
Ancient Architecture Consultant & Design
Hangzhou Xiaoshan Guangyu Architectural Construction Ltd. Image Credits: SpActrum
Construction Contractors
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