Press Release
Jiahua Xu Is Honored with the Bronze A' Design Award for Lilong Arcade Community Center in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
Jiahua Xu acknowledged for architecture, building and structure design by the international grand jury of the 2024 - 2025 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 19, 2025 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that Lilong Arcade Community Center by Jiahua Xu, designed for Archtic, has been granted the Bronze A' Design Award in the Architecture, Building and Structure Design category. The recognition forms part of the 2024 - 2025 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who evaluated anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
The Bronze A' Design Award Explained
The Bronze A' Design Award is given to outstanding designs that showcase a high degree of creativity and practicality. It recognizes the dedication and skill of designers who produce work that stands out for its thoughtful development and innovative use of materials and technology. These designs are acknowledged for their professional execution and potential to influence industry standards positively. Winning this award highlights the designer's ability to blend form and function effectively, offering solutions that enhance people's lives and wellbeing.
About Lilong Arcade Community Center
Lilong Arcade thoughtfully blends traditional arcade architecture with modern design, creating accessible, versatile spaces tailored to community engagement. By carefully respecting historical context, the project enhances urban experiences and promotes social interactions, adaptability, cultural preservation, and vibrant public life within a contemporary urban setting.
About Jiahua Xu
I am Jiahua Xu, an experienced architect with a robust international portfolio spanning diverse markets including the US, China, Middle East, and Southeast Asia. My professional significance is anchored in extensive experience with complex mixed-use projects, from conceptualization through detailed design to execution. My expertise lies particularly ina synthesis of innovative architectural theory and rigorous technical capability, allowing me to effectively translate complex design concepts into functionally and aesthetically compelling realities, notably through parametric design. My skills bridge top-notch architectural design with advanced digital workflows.
Award Record
This recognition makes Jiahua Xu a winner of 1 A' Design Award.
About the A' Architecture, Building and Structure Design Award
The A' Architecture Design Award is an international architectural design competition recognizing good architectural designs by best architects worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to architectural design studios, building contractors, structural engineering firms and architecture and design consultants from all countries. Entries typically include skyscrapers, museums, residential buildings, commercial complexes, educational institutions and religious structures. Awarded architectural projects are published at https://designers.org/design-category/architecture
About A' Design Award & Competition
A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission to advance society through good design by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, the upload of a work and the preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://designers.org/164415
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/164415
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!164415
- Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/355439
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Lilong Arcade Community Center
- Function
- Community Center
- Category
- Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Discipline
- Spatial Design
- Industry
- Architecture
- Colors
- Light Gray, Silver, Dark Slate Gray, Dark Gray and Dark Olive Green
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Archtic
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Jiahua Xu
- Country
- United States of America
- Recognition
- Bronze A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2024 - 2025
- Design ID
- #164415
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- "Lilong Arcade" embraces the concept of integrating public spaces with historical features while meeting modern needs. Flexible layouts maximize space usage, blending fixed and mobile areas to accommodate diverse community needs. The facade design marries historical elements with modern materials, maintaining harmony with the surrounding architecture while creating a welcoming, vibrant environment that supports public engagement.
- Inspiration
- The design concept of "Lilong Arcade" aims to adopt the "arcade", an architectural motif with publicness and sharing, to integrate historical features while showing the contemporaryity, making the building a natural extension of the walkable street system. The project revolves around the principles of serving the people, adapting to local conditions, and flexible adaptation, creating a rich and high-quality service and activity space for citizens in the limited existing space.
- Research
- The project is located in Changning District, Shanghai, with a profound cultural heritage of foreign culture and local traditions. The facade of the project building adopts a modern eclectic arcade form, which pays tribute to the traditional style. The arcade not only gives the building a timeless beauty, but also increases the transparency by providing a gray space for citizens to interact. The exterior wall of the building adopts light-colored bricks to be unified with the surrounding style, the floor-to-ceiling glass windows fill the interior space with natural light, enhancing the openness and transparency of the building.
- Challenge
- Since the reconstruction cannot break through the three-dimensional boundary, the building height cannot be greatly increased. As for the problem of insufficient building height (about 3.5 meters), the small column span shallow beam and partial height treatment are used to achieve: the conventional column span is 4.5-6 meters, and the local span is increased to enhance the permeability of the space.
- Realization and Technology
- Since the reconstruction cannot break through the existing building 3D boundary, the original building height is reused in accordance with the principle of economy and practicality. The small column span shallow beam are used to achieve span of 4.5-6 meters. An atrium is set inside the building to enhance the lighting while eliminating the sense of space cramped. The visual corridor perpendicular to Main Road naturally extends to the depths of the base, leading the direction of the axis network system.
- Operation and Interaction
- To fully realize the functionality of various spaces in the limited space, a combination of fixed space + flexible space is adopt. That is, in addition to the spaces that rely on equipment such as the service center, community canteen, ect, most of the activities and learning places are optimized into flex spaces through operation. This not only helps the space allocation within the project, but also helps promote the fair and efficient allocation of public resources.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project started in April 2024 in Shanghai and finished in August 2024
- Specifications
- Plot area:937m² Gross Floor Area: 1677m² Overall outdoor activity: 478.6m² Citizen activity center: 154.6m² F&B Retail: 202.5m² Elderly activity center: 110.3m² Healthcare: 288.5m² Children's activity and Daycare: 374.3m² Sports: 288.5m² Flexible: 258.4m²
- Keywords
- community, social, civic, activity, wellness, urban, historic district, flexibility
