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DesignNewswire · COMO, Italy ·

Mermaid Town Reception Hall Cultural Architecture by Yue Xu Is Granted the Silver A' Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design

Yue Xu honored for architecture, building and structure design by the international grand jury of the 2019 - 2020 A' Design Award & Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COMO, Italy, April 23, 2020 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Mermaid Town Reception Hall Cultural Architecture by Yue Xu, designed for Voa, has been granted the Silver A' Design Award in the Architecture, Building and Structure Design category. The award was conferred within the 2019 - 2020 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who scored anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.

What the Silver A' Design Award Means

The Silver A' Design Award celebrates top-tier designs that embody excellence and innovation. This award acknowledges creations that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional, reflecting the designer's deep understanding and skill. Silver A' Design Award recipients are recognized for their contribution to raising industry standards and advancing the practice of design. Their work often incorporates original innovations and elicits a strong emotional response, making a notable impact on the improvement of everyday life.

Regarding Mermaid Town Reception Hall Cultural Architecture

Mermaid Town Reception Hall is a cultural building in Zhouning, Fujian, China. The complex covers 12000 square meters and serves as a tourism distribution center and a cultural activity center. The design combines square and circular forms, inspired by the local earth fort architecture. A circular corridor marks the boundary between the two buildings and gives shelter from strong summer sun and from rainy, cold winters. Exterior walls are finished with white texture paint and handmade gray brick. Spatial axes link the halls to a nearby brook, a lake and a mountain.

About Yue Xu

Yue Xu, born in December 1981, is from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, Doctor of architecture, senior architect, national first class registered architect, German HPP architect visiting architect. He once worked in HPP (Dusseldorf headquarters), Zhejiang Architectural Design Institute and other well-known design institutions at home and abroad. Now, he is the design director of EPC center of Zhejiang Academy of Architectural Science and Design Co., Ltd., the vice president of Zhejiang Academy of Architectural Science and Design Co., Ltd., and the host of Jixiang creative research center.

Award Record

With this recognition, Yue Xu is a winner of 1 A' Design Award.

About the A' Architecture, Building and Structure Design Award

The A' Architecture Design Award is an international architectural design competition recognizing good architectural designs by best architects worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to architectural design studios, building contractors, structural engineering firms and architecture and design consultants from all countries. Entries typically include skyscrapers, museums, residential buildings, commercial complexes, educational institutions and religious structures. Awarded architectural projects are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/architecture

About A' Design Award & Competition

A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission to advance society through good design by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, the upload of a work and the preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com

Press Resources

Media Contact

Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953

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Fact Sheet

The Work

Project
Mermaid Town Reception Hall Cultural Architecture
Function
Cultural Architecture
Category
Architecture, Building and Structure Design
Discipline
Spatial Design
Industry
Architecture
Colors
Dark Slate Gray, Dim Gray, Gray, Light Slate Gray and Dark Gray
Images
5
Client
Voa

The Recognition

Laureate
Yue Xu
Country
China
Recognition
Silver A' Design Award
Edition
2019 - 2020
Design ID
#98670

Credits

Team
Lvting Qu, Xiaoyun Qi, Chencheng Li, Qizun Cai and Feng Zhou
Image Credits
Photographer Dachou Wang, Mermaid Town, 2019.

Design Details

Unique Properties
The site is surrounded by water in the north, dotted with hills. Designers adopted the gestalt geometry strategy as a positive means to deal with the contrast between artificial and natural, and achieved the Oriental aesthetic conception of round sky, square place, elegant and peaceful with the surrounding natural landscape, which is also the abstract expression of mermaid harmonious culture.
Inspiration
The purpose of this project is to interpret the tradition with the modern, change the life with the architecture, and revitalize the countryside with the design. In the northeast of Fujian Province near Zhouning, there are such unique architectural types as "earth fort", which is the combination of square and circle, and simple in volume. It provides inspiration for designers to build a "round sky and place" in the local context.
Research
Carp Brook Ancient Village in Zhouning County, Fujian is a famous historical and cultural village that has lasted for more than one thousand years. It has built a beautiful scenery of Peach Garden where people and fish share happiness and live harmoniously, and everywhere embodies the unity of heaven and man pursued by Chinese traditional culture. This case is only one mountain away from Carp Brook Ancient Village, which is the distribution hub of the future scenic area open to visitors.
Challenge
A circular corridor is set up at the boundary of the two buildings, which is not only the designers' response to the strong radiation in summer and rainy and cold climate in winter in Zhouning, but also a non-verbal expression of the path of fish sacrifice, a unique intangible cultural heritage of Carp Brook Ancient Village. Through the isomorphism of this ritual track, which has been accumulated for thousands of years, the architecture achieves a delicate balance between memorial and life.
Realization and Technology
The exterior walls of buildings are respectively painted with white texture paint and hand-made gray brick, which is a practical strategy to deal with the inevitable construction errors of China's rapid construction. In particular, the woven hemp rope background wall in the entrance hall of the small theater is the remedy taken by the designer to deal with the incredible budget errors.
Operation and Interaction
The designers built a group of spatial axes connecting the turning points between the geometric centers of the two buildings. One side is adjacent to the Carp Brook in the center of the historical village, one side leads to the Longteng Lake in the center of the new town, and the other side is facing the highest Xianfeng Mountain in Zhouning. The building is firmly anchored in the context of the city, quietly telling Zhouning's past, present and future.
Project Duration and Location
The project started in November 2017 in Ningde and finished in September 2019 in Ningde.
Specifications
The project covers a total of 12000 square meters. Under the background of the regeneration of urban and rural historical environment and the construction of Characteristic Towns in the ascendant, through the engineering practice of the reception hall of Zhouning Mermaid Town, the architects made a beneficial exploration on the direction of China's future small town construction.
Keywords
Architectural Design, Oriental Elements, Tourism Distribution Center, Cultural Activity Center, Mermaid Culture, Global, Locality, Commemoration, Modern

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