Platinum Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2024
Nanbu Eye Gymnasium
- A' Design Award 2024 Platinum Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2024
- CLIENT: Zhoyu
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 4,936,344
- Verification code 859526CEF0 · Verify this award
About Nanbu Eye Gymnasium
Nanbu Eye is a gymnasium built beside the Jialing River. The building covers 22,000 square meters and reaches 32 meters in height. The upper floor holds an indoor basketball arena with a capacity of 3,000 people. The lower floor is a civic sports center with a 50 meter swimming pool and rooms for badminton, table tennis, fitness and yoga. A jewel-like structural system carries a dome with a span of 90 meters. A curved ribbon of colorful aluminum plates provides shading and encloses a public square, and cuts in the surface form three panoramic corridors along the water.
FTA Group's Nanbu Eye Gymnasium represents a distinguished achievement in contemporary civic architecture, exemplifying the synthesis of sculptural ambition with functional program requirements that characterizes the most accomplished public recreational facilities of the early twenty-first century. The design appears to engage with parametric and organic modernist traditions, perhaps evoking the biomorphic investigations of practitioners who seek to dissolve boundaries between landscape and built form through continuously flowing geometries. The gymnasium's remarkable dome structure, crowned with its crystalline geodesic lattice, suggests careful consideration of both structural efficiency and atmospheric spectacle, the triangulated glazing system permitting interior illumination to emanate outward as a beacon within the urban nocturnal landscape while presumably admitting natural daylight during daytime hours. The warm linear lighting that traces the building's horizontal bands and surrounding promenades demonstrates sophisticated environmental lighting design, creating welcoming pedestrian circuits while establishing visual hierarchy and wayfinding clarity. The planimetric organization evokes an eye motif, suggesting metaphorical readings related to vision, perception, and the gymnasium's role as a place of focused attention and physical cultivation. The waterfront siting appears purposeful, positioning the facility as a mediating element between urban infrastructure and natural hydrological systems, the sinuous building edges echoing riverine morphology while the outdoor courts nestle within protective architectural embrace. The integration of landscape, architecture, and infrastructure visible in this composition suggests holistic site thinking that considers the gymnasium as urban catalyst rather than isolated object. One might contemplate how this facility serves as gathering place for community vitality, physical wellness, and civic pride, its luminous presence transforming the evening skyline into an invitation for collective engagement and individual achievement.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Located by the Jialing River, this gymnasium achieves harmony, openness and interaction with nature. The design is carried out from the three core concepts of earthscape, integration and openness. The overall project is conceived as an earthscape, just like a picture scroll in one stroke along the Jialing River. The city and nature are merged together, the architecture and landscape are integrated, a continuous spatial sequence is formed along the waterfront.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The gymnasium is 22,000 square meters in size and 32 meters in height. It contains two main floors, the upstairs space is designed with an indoor basketball arena with a capacity of 3,000 people; the downstairs space is a civic sports center, which includes a swimming pool with 50-meter standard swimming lanes and functional spaces for badminton, table tennis, fitness and yoga.
- Tags
- Earthscape, Integration, Openness, "Jewel" structural system, "Silk" surface
- Production Technology
- "Jewel": The jewel-like structural system realizes the integrity of the building, supports the huge architectural dome and surface, and forms the distinctive interior facade and space, achieving the unity of the structure, space and facade.
"Silk": The soft ribbon brings the building a sensual image that blends into nature, and the panoramic footpath is a metaphor for the Silk Road. The "silk" surface plays the function of shading and energy saving, and forms a gray space of micro-climate regulation.
Colorful aluminum plate: Nanchong is the silk capital of western China. The undulating exterior of the building twists and turns along the waterfront. The colorful aluminum plates, the changing sky light and time coexist harmoniously with the silk charm of Nanchong. - Design Challenge
- The strong function and structure of the sports building and its integration with nature are the most important challenges facing the project. Through the soft silk surface, we integrate the building with the landscape waterfront as a whole.
Openness is the second major challenge, and through the multiple grey spaces enclosed by the surface, the building creates sufficient open possibilities.
The structure is the third major challenge. The inner space of the building, supported by the jewel structural system, carries a huge dome with a span of 90 meters, a 10m projecting silk surface and a circular corridor, presenting distinctive features, forming the inner facade and achieving the unity of the structure, space and facade. - Project Duration
- The project started in November 2020 in Chengdu and finished in August 2022 in Chengdu.
- Operation Flow
- Openness: The building expresses maximum openness, the 'ribbon' encloses tens of thousands of square meters of civic square and sports field, and the cuts on the building surface form three panoramic corridors of different heights, visitors can enjoy the ever-changing scenery of the Jialing River while walking. These spaces are open 24/7.
Professional sports: The basketball hall can host basketball games, performance and other activities; the citizen sports center is open all year round to provide professional fitness facilities; the outdoor sports venue presents flexible layout and is free of charge. - Research
- 1. Earthscape: Architecture in the earthscape.
2. Integration: Integrated construction of the building and waterfront.
3. Openness: A truly open sports building for all.
4. Jewel structural system: The realization of the integration of structure, space and facade.
5. Silk surface: Silk Road, a combination of panoramic platform and ecological architecture. - Inspiration
- The gymnasium is conceived as a landscape building on the banks of the Jialing River, a brilliant gem on the Silk Road, where nature and humanity, technology and poetry meet.
Sports and architecture symbolize power, but nature is soft, and the Nanbu Eye seems to be the medium between them. The collision and fusion of "soft" and "tough" burst out fresh energy, integrating sports into the natural environment, allowing people to strengthen their health in a relaxed and back-to-nature environment. - Image Credits
- Image #1-5: Photographer Dong Liang and Zhang Hongge, RAWVISION studio, 2023
- Patents
- Technically, this project is designed in accordance with the Green Building Evaluation Standard-Two Star and will be certified after completion.
Colors of Nanbu Eye Gymnasium
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