Chaohu, Anhui Province, China
Located at the foot of a mountain and the city of Chaohu, the OCT Chaohu Natural and Cultural Centre by Change Architects and Masters’Architectural Office (M.A.O.) is there to demonstrate the indigenous cultural heritage on the one hand and seems to stand on the fence to the future domestic entertainment life in the city on the other hand.
The main purpose of this architectural cultural center concept has derived from the idea of natural elements and could be regarded as a critical point of the local natural environment and urban domestic life.
How to make the background of the mountain, the earth‘s vegetation, geological context, and so on to form the body of the building, and through the formation of the building body as a carrier to show the light and shadow, rain and snow, air these smaller elements.
Architecture is no longer just the scale and space required for human activities, but more importantly to express the natural elements that these architects want to display, and on this basis, let citizens and their behavior activities feel the self-shaping space of the natural element.
The overall plans and elevations of the building are projected by the external shape of the mountain and the earth’s contour.
On this individual building block, the architects have begun to carry out fascinating and creative imagination about a wiggly worm in the ground: wormholes formed as worms crawl through are the boundary of inside and outside buildings.
The wormholes shaped by worm drilling out of the surface (building) that is the result of what the architects hope and deliberately form.
Topography is incorporated including the treatment of the relationship with the surrounding environment as a whole.
The architecture will embody the strength that the architect intends to express which includes the sense of strength, spaciousness and the perspective of experience sensation.
Hence, the architecture offers an authentic spatial effect, not only focusing on whole monolithic architecture, but it also claims to incorporate localization, physical landform, and peripheral regions.
The structure of the building adopts a steel structure to ensure the project construction speed and controllability.
On the top and bottom of the structure layer, the roof in-situ pouring and GRC hanging board are combined respectively.
A concrete roof poured on the surface and the inner cavity GRC hanging board are not final layers.
After the construction of the foundation level was completed, the architects used two methods planting the roof and spraying lightweight concrete to complete the shaping of the upper and lower veneer layers.
Compared with the curtain wall system, these two methods are both malleable finishes, and their inherent characteristics determine that it must have a better match with the streamlined shape, and greatly reduce the tolerance for accuracy.
Due to the large difference in the slope rate of the building roof, the building adopts a variety of anti-skid treatment strategies.
On gentle slopes, large mesh anti-skid partitions are used, while on steeper slopes, dense hole partitions are used.
Project: OCT Chaohu Natural and Cultural Centre
Architects: Change Architects
Landscape Architects: Masters’Architectural Office (M.A.O)
Design Team: Jiang Qiu, Zhou Yangyang, Shi Chen, Li Baona, Hou Xiaomeng, Jin Xiaoli, Bian Keming, and Hao Ziting
Structural Engineers: Anhui Fuhuang Construction Co., Ltd
Client: OCT East China Group, OCT Hefei Huanchao cultural and Tourism Real Estate Development Co., Ltd.
Photographers: Wu Qingshan
