Shanghai, China
Commissioned by Lost Heaven Restaurant Group and Shanghai Fuhan Enterprise Development, Yuangou Architects & Consultants Ltd. have completed the remodelling of a former power plant in Shanghai into a more organized and efficient group of buildings for a variety of uses.
758 Julu, originally built in 1960 and remodelled in 2018, was originally the Shanghai Yi Power Plant.
Although it is not a cultural relic or heritage-protected, buildings from every era are a very precious part of the city’s history and carry traces of time.
Julu Place 758 has recently been awarded a 2022 International Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The central consideration for the redesign of 758 Julu was the relationship between the building and the city street.
The division of facade doors and windows was reintegrated to create a simple and attractive facade along the street on the first floor of the building.
Many single buildings make up the second phase of the project, which were built in different eras.
A new balance was found for the building through the conversion of spaces and the shaping of new places.
The architects connected seven buildings with indoor and outdoor corridors.
This transformed several buildings that had a vague and disorderly relationship with each other into more cohesive and accessible spaces.
This approach improves traffic efficiency, enhancing the overall sense of the building image, and at the same time providing a richer space experience and opportunities for indoor and outdoor interaction.
In terms of external landscape, the central square of the site contains a market.
This series of practices made the originally abandoned and chaotic industrial relics form an organic whole, which in turn, stimulated the vitality of this site.
By constructing a transitional space with corridors, shared spaces, and public spaces as the main body, various office functions are connected to form a shared, open, and interactive space experience.
Transformation of functions and optimization of resources was beneficial also for fire protection.
When entering the inner courtyard of the building from the main entrance, one faces the south facade of Building 3.
The south facade adopts simple design techniques to form the first display surface as a kind of prelude to what is to come.
One turns right and enters the inner courtyard, where the water tower is used as the second display surface and also the climax of the entire building complex.
Looking further to the north, the building stands in opposition to the office buildings in the Jing’an Temple business district.
Color analysis along the street led to beige, brick red, gray, and coffee as the main colors for the facades along Julu Road.
Project: Julu Place 758
Architects: Yuangou Architects & Consultants Ltd.
General Contractor: Shanghai Youwan Design Co., Ltd.
Clients: Lost Heaven Restaurant Group and Shanghai Fuhan Enterprise Development Co., Ltd.
Photographers: Pan Shuang
