Zhengzhou Industrial Heritage Art District

With the rapid development of Zhengzhou city, a large number of old industrial campus have been left unused, abandoned or even demolished. The industrial heritage that once held historical significance, memory of the workers and unique architectural characteristic has become lost places in the city. The project vision is to transform the group of industrial buildings, including high temperature and high pressure boilers, co-generation units, chimneys, condensing towers, coal transmission corridors and coal storage, which used to generate electricity for major part of the city but by now have been left abandoned for 13 years, into a new art district with a site area of 145,000 sqm that integrates the historical value of the industrial site with new cultural tourism programme, artist studios, exhibitions, markets, restaurants and office spaces for today’s creative industry.

In terms of heritage conservation and redevelopment, the project took a value based approach, by preserving the original Xinglongpu Thermal Power Plant and its layout as a whole, and adding new and high quality building spaces, facilities and details, to provide a unique user and visitor experience. The thermal power plant will become one of the city’s proudest possession again with appropriate and effective conservation and transformation. The new art district will give the thermal power plant a new life and develop creative ideas to the value based conservation of industrial heritage.

The design also seeks to address the uniqueness and complexity of protecting the historic value of industrial heritage and combining it with the rapidly developing new creative industry, allowing industrial civilization and technological revolution to co-exist in harmony. The project aims to promote the adaptive use of industrial heritage in terms of design, use and function, making Zhengzhou Industrial Heritage Art District a vibrant and shared urban communication centre, boosting the high quality redevelopment of the old city, giving renewed vitality to the old city which was built around the thermal power plant, offering excellent facilities for young people who are interested in art, technology and business in Zhengzhou, and creating a 24Hr community that integrates work, social, entertainment, education and accommodation.