Chongqing, China
Located on a hill at the high point of Chongqing’s Innovation Zone’s 6.8-square-kilometer core area, the Planning Exhibition Center of Liangjiang Collaborative Innovation Zone by Tang Hua of Tanghua Architects creates a “living room” for a Chongqing where technology, culture, and nature intertwine.
The plot is a hillock, which is at a high point of the Innovation Zone’s 6.8-square-kilometer core area.
To the east of the site is a cliff, below which there lies Mingyue Lake and its surrounding ecological belt.
Enveloped in a natural environment, the site has a faint view of Longxing Ancient Town.
The planning exhibition center serves the functions of reception, exhibition, communication, and office as the “living room” of the Innovation Zone.
Its functional boundaries are flexible, and it enjoys a rich natural setting.
From the early phase of the project, the architects carefully worked to avoid creating an overwhelmingly huge structure on top of the small hillock.
The team adopted an approach that disperses the functions specified in the Design Brief across the landscape. The visiting circulation starts from a bamboo forest at Yuanqu Road.
As nature gradually gives way to manmade landscapes, more scenery is unveiled along the circulation.
The first floor of the main building involves nothing else but an exhibition hall that showcases the master plan models of the Innovation Zone.
The building is presented as a perfect circle in plan, whilst its varying roof heights indicate internal programmatic divisions.
The building is a formal representation of the Jialing River and Yangtze River, perched on one side of the hillock and adopting the form of a stilted structure that is local to the Chongqing region.
Adjacent to a cliff, the office area, meeting room, and café are located below the round hall, offering stunning views of an open lake.
To avoid abrupt transitions between these areas and the main exhibition hall, the design encourages visitors to explore the surrounding scenery as they move between indoor spaces.
Additionally, a vertical cylindrical structure provides vital support for efficient access and service circulation throughout the building.
The architects leveraged a sectional design approach to create a building in the shape of a vertical garden.
By refining the functions of the building, the team not only fully integrated the building with the surrounding landscape but also established a deeper relationship between the main exhibition hall and the intricacies of the architectural form, thus avoiding the fate of being a monotonous envelope architecture.
The intersection of Jialing River and Yangtze River has created a unique culture of Chongqing, as well as becoming the city’s most recognizable icon.
The architects incorporated the shape of confluence into the building’s design as the guiding formal structure.
This form overlaps with the circular plan of the main hall with varying roof heights signifying three distinct internal zones: a high-ceilinged exhibition area, a mountain-shaped exhibition platform, and an exhibition wall area.
The exhibition hall can also serve as a venue to host events for special occasions such as holiday, celebrations or press conferences.
Rather than a conventional dedicated area for the scaled urban development model on the floor, the design team conceived a 17-meter-high exhibition wall to showcase the master plan of Liangjiang New Area vertically.
The visual language of the “flowing rivers” defines the spatial expression of the main exhibition hall and the vertical structure of the entire building.
Each floor is provided with a cantilevering platform, with the largest one protruding outwards for approximately 12 meters.
1.5-meter steel trusses are utilized to ensure the vertical rigidity of the large overhangs and the comfort of the human experience.
For some cantilevers, beams are attached to the upper and lower chords to maintain the stability of the truss. Standing at the center of the exhibition hall, visitors can clearly perceive the iconic shape of the Yuzhong peninsula.
The facade design is generated by the form of the two-river-confluence.
The building blends into the natural surroundings like a quiet sculpture, without excessive expression other than that of the form itself.
Fair-faced concrete panels are used as the primary material for the facades, creating a consistent architectural image with a rustic texture.
To reduce the visual effect of surface panelization, the architects added vertical grooves and rough textures to the surface of the panels, in order to integrate the vertical gaps.
The horizontal gaps are set at 30 millimeters wide, which enhances the visual expression of the facade.
The facade panels follow a standard module of 4.3 meters, which reduces the number of molds required and improves construction efficiency.
This also helps to control the placement and size of the openings on the facade, creating a simple and unified texture that accentuates the changes in the architectural form.
The visitors’ circulation creates spatial rhythms in the context of a rich and marvelous landscape.
Visitors experience a sense of compression as they traverse a narrow path through the towering bamboo forest before entering the planning exhibition center.
This experience acts as the prelude to the expansive view of Mingyue Lake. Upon reaching the entrance of the exhibition center via a leading bridge, visitors pass through a small private gate with a height of only 2.1 meters before they’re greeted by a 19-meter-high exhibition hall.
Perched on the southern hilltop, the building takes on the form of a traditional stilted structure, leaning against the hill, forming interior spaces and viewing platforms at different altitudes.
The shape of the hill is also integrated into the building’s design, resulting in a multi-leveled space.
The rooftop terrace, which offers stunning views, is connected to a walking trail on the hilltop, making it part of a larger landscape system.
The walking trail system is linked to the entrance terrace and the viewing terrace, making the building a public platform and a hub for the larger landscape system.
As the vegetation at the site grows lusher, the design team’s initial vision of the building-nature relationship has been realized.
In the picturesque landscape with mountain and lake views, the light-grey exhibition center sits on the hilltop in an elegant, simple, and restrained yet eye-catching manner.
It stands as a companion and a witness to the city of innovation, a land where technology, culture, and nature intertwine.
Project: The Planning Exhibition Center of Liangjiang Collaborative Innovation Zone, Chongqing
Architects: Tanghua Architects
Lead Architect: Tang Hua
Design Team: Dai Qiong, Zheng Qing, Wang Pengfu, Yang Yuan, Yan Peiqi, Tang Mengchan, Liu Huawei, Zheng Chenxi, and Wang Tianhao
Landscape Designers: Yimu Qianjue Landscape Design Co., Ltd.
Exhibition Designer: Silkroad Visual Technology Co., Ltd.
Client: Chongqing Liangjiang Collaborative Innovation Zone Construction Investment & Development Co., Ltd.
Photographers: MMCM Studio, RudyDong