Silver Cultural Heritage · 2023

Qiushi Academy

by U a D

Silver A' Design Award 2023 in Cultural Heritage
CLIENT: Uad
Estimated Number of Design Views: 531,396
Verification code 43547C3E8B · Verify this award

View at A' Design Award Press Release

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About Qiushi Academy

Qiushi is an academy building complex designed for a university campus in Hangzhou, China. The complex holds small and medium academic talks, conferences and exhibitions. Based on the earlier Qiushi Academy, the design combines modern functions with traditional Chinese architectural form. Staggered buildings around a courtyard follow the topography and water system of the site. Reinforced concrete replaces brick and timber, and a long-span truss structure creates a lecture hall without columns. Reflective coated glass under the eaves brings more daylight into the interior.

About the Silver A' Design Award

Qiushi Academy is a Silver A' Design Award winner, an extraordinarily prestigious recognition granted to top-of-the-line, gorgeous, and impressive designs. Silver winners are tremendously brilliant and exceedingly creative works that illustrate the outstanding expertise, talent, and acuity of their designers. Qiushi Academy is expected to be a wonderful, showpiece work that is remarkably professional and profoundly innovative. This Silver A' Design Award-winning design is a highly notable, admired invention that benefits and advances the boundaries of art, science, design, and technology. Qiushi Academy is a vastly envied creation that evokes desires, introduces positive feelings, and sparks amazement and wonderment.

Press Kit

Unique Properties: The staggered buildings around the courtyard perfectly match the topography and water system of the site. The project extracts the dynamic feature from south Chinese architecture and the solemn touch from north Chinese architecture. In this way, the complex well expresses characters of both local architectures and higher educational constructions.
Dimensions & Packaging: Project area: 8130 square meters
Type: Multifunctional building
Tags: Zijingang Campus of Zhejiang University, Qiushi Academy, Building Complex with Cultural Elements, Hip-and-gable Roof with Double Eaves, Tradition
Production Technology: The project mainly uses modern reinforced concrete to replace traditional bricks and wooden materials. Besides, it makes innovations in structures and forms. Modern frame and long-span truss structure are utilized to create a large lecture hall without columns. Traditional timber plates under the eaves are substituted for reflective coated glass, which helpfully introduces more daylight into the interior and also produces a fresh visual effect.
Design Challenge: Since the interior under traditional roof is complex and need to harmonize with the exposed structural system, the arrangement of pipelines and sprinklers posed a great difficulty. In response, the design team merged pipelines and sprinklers with indoor components and partial decorations, thus suiting the firefighting requirements, without affecting the interior decoration effect. Advanced intelligent system not only meets the current practical needs, while also adapting to future development.
Research: The designers made bold breakthroughs in architectural form while keeping its traditional style. The variant of hip-and-gable roof with double eaves used in the lecture hall breaks the established forms of traditional temples and palaces, highlighting a majestic touch. For Zhejiang University, the building complex featuring cultural elements is a reproduction of the original one, carrying the academy's history of over one hundred years and inheriting the historical spirit of "seeking truth".
Inspiration: The building complex is able to hold small and medium academic talks, conferences, exhibitions, etc. Based on the forerunner Qiushi Academy, the project integrates modern functions and design techniques with Chinese traditional architectural form. The building complex in a symmetric arrangement produces a solemn image, while also conveying asymmetric variations.
Project Duration: Duartion: 2014.12.01-2017.05.12
Location: West District, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China
Operation Flow: The "courtyard-style" layout was a prominent feature of the old academy. The restored master plan from historical records reveals that the old academy included main house, side houses, corridors and an enclosed courtyard. The design team attached great importance to it. Therefore, in the new master planning, "Qiushi Lecture Hall" and "Xiqian Hall" are connected by corridors in an enclosed manner, constituting the modern-day Qiushi Academy.
Image Credits: Zhao Qiang