Platinum Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2021
Shard-The Power of Inner Dynamics Sales Office
by Qun Wen
- A' Design Award 2021 Platinum Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2021
- CLIENT: Aoe
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 231,290
- Verification code 7CF8F2E32E · Verify this award
About Shard-The Power of Inner Dynamics Sales Office
Shard is a sales office in Chongqing, China, created through the renovation of an existing building. Deconstruction techniques were used to break the traditional enclosed layout and to form a flowing open space. The shapes of the design are inspired by natural mountains and rocks. The facade is composed of aluminum units shaped like paper cranes, which give the building the character of an artwork within the city. The building area is 3000 square meters. The aim is to support interaction between people, art and space.
Qun Wen's Shard-The Power of Inner Dynamics Sales Office emerges as a compelling exemplar of contemporary architectural expression, positioning itself within the lineage of deconstructivist spatial investigation while demonstrating a distinctly refined material sensibility that elevates commercial architecture to the realm of sculptural art, the structure's dramatic angular composition suggesting the dynamic forces of geological formation translated through the precise vocabulary of contemporary construction, with intersecting planar masses creating a visual narrative of tension and resolution that rewards sustained contemplation, the designer's masterful deployment of natural travertine stone establishes an immediate dialogue between organic material warmth and geometric rigor, the horizontal striations of the stone lending a sense of temporal depth and earthly grounding to forms that otherwise seem to defy gravity through their bold cantilevers and sharp angular projections, the extensive glass surfaces function as mediating elements between interior and exterior realms, their transparent membranes revealing the warm luminosity within while reflecting the transitional atmospheric conditions of the blue hour, this interplay between opacity and transparency, between solid mass and dematerialized light, suggests a sophisticated understanding of architectural phenomenology and the experiential dimension of built space, the reflecting pool serves as both formal compositional device and symbolic threshold, its mirror-still surface creating a doubled world that extends the architectural gesture into an implied realm below while establishing the building as a precious object emerging from elemental water, the integration of subtle embedded lighting across the stone facades demonstrates attention to nocturnal presence and the extended temporal life of the structure beyond daylight hours, collectively these elements create an environment that transcends mere commercial function to offer visitors an experience of spatial poetry and material refinement, one might contemplate how architecture at this level of ambition transforms the act of arrival into a form of aesthetic encounter.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- This is not a traditional sales office, but a more inclusive and open way to interact with people. The different components of the building are seen as connecting and composing an integral structure, while at the same time exposing a horizon of disconnection paradoxically linking significant places to the city.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Building Area: 3000 sqm, Width 82300 mm x Depth 24600 mm x Height 23600 mm
- Tags
- Renovation, Deconstruction, Paper Crane, Sales Office, Mountains
- Production Technology
- Through the unit components of the aluminum thousand paper crane on the facade, it will create its own works of art in the city, and inject new vitality into the city.
- Design Challenge
- The project has its own mission and tonality according to the different natural environment, cultural atmosphere and project positioning. Compared with other architects' personal heroism, aoe affairs construction group pays more attention to the interaction between architecture and nature, architecture and society, architecture and people.
- Project Duration
- The project started in October 2019 and finished in March 2020 in Chongqing, China.
- Operation Flow
- On the north side is the planned land for education, on the south side is the primary school and Zhulin experimental school, on the west side is the residential area, and on the east side is adjacent to the light rail.
- Research
- This project is based on an existing building. The renovation, therefore, does not seek to dominate as a new form, but rather retreats to form a background of hope for the existing building containing the folk art collection. This building is treated as the familiar, yet solitary every-day figures, while the entire site is reorganized around the nexus of a new topography which connects the city back onto itself.
- Inspiration
- Inspired by the trend of natural mountains and rocks and their shapes, the designer used deconstruction techniques to break through the traditional enclosure mode, created a flowing open space, explore a new way of life experience, and regard the building itself as a city's artwork to creat an interactive relationship between people, art and space.
- Image Credits
- Huang Ligang
- Patents
- N/A
Colors of Shard-The Power of Inner Dynamics Sales Office
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