Hefu 展示中心 by Shanghai PTArchitects is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2021 A' Design Award 金奖 in 建筑与结构设计 Competition Category.

金建筑· 2021

Hefu 展示中心

by Shanghai PTArchitects

Client: Shanghai PTArchitects

A' Design Award 金奖 Winner in 建筑 Category

21,397

Verified Award Winner

Verify Award Status for #116203

Visit Site View at A' Design Award Press Release Award Badge

Colors

The Design

About Hefu 展示中心

和府是一座位于中国广州从化的展示中心。建筑以玉为主题，遵循玉石雕琢的工序层次展开。入口以质朴的石材构筑，呈现出玉石般的肌理，隐藏式线性照明令入口显得更为轻盈。这种玉质肌理贯穿建筑整体，从入口门户到主体结构，再到接待大堂与会议区域皆有延续。取自河中的卵石与镜面般的水景塑造了室外空间，通透的玻璃则将周边景致引入室内。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 金奖

Hefu 展示中心是 A' Design Award 金奖得主，这是授予一流、绝妙而杰出设计的极为崇高的认可。金奖得主是极具创新、极富远见且璀璨夺目的创作，反映出其设计师的天才、智慧与才干。预计Hefu 展示中心将成为一项备受赞誉、引领潮流、气势恢宏的发明，带来前所未有的价值。这件赢得 A' Design Award 金奖的设计是一个壮观而受人敬重的项目，极大地造福并拓展艺术、科学、设计和技术的边界。Hefu 展示中心激起强烈的渴望，唤起激情，鼓励创造力，令我们着迷。

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: Combining features of the river’s inclusiveness, stone’s purity and jade’s transparency, the display center is designed in a modern minimal style. The design language is based on the exploration of very basic elements, such as light, space, transparency, materiality, and layout, etc. The concise and transparent technique used breaks the boundaries between internal and external spaces, and the form and facade of the building are built on the element of light and natural resources.
Dimensions & Packaging: The natural and simple pebbles collected from the river reflects the main body of the display center. The jade installation at the entrance indicates the structure of the entrance and interior space of the building, which represents the history and culture that have been nurtured for a long time in Conghua. A mirror-like waterscape is slowly unfolded like an ink painting scroll that becomes the highlight point of the entire space circulation tour. At the same time, the scenery is invited to the interior room through the transparent glass.
Tags: display center, humanistic spirit, jade-like texture, spatial expansion
Production Technology: The project is located in Conghua, Guangzhou, an ancient town in Southern China where the Neolithic ruins are unearthed. With the accumulation of thousands of years of history and culture, it has nurtured a long-standing humanistic spirit and natural landscape. The designer draws on the impression of the town, takes jade as the theme of the design, the process of jade making as the context and connects different functional spaces with different jade cultural landscapes, and at the same time extract elements from jade culture then re-interpret them in a new manner, and aims to create new cultural perspective while keeping the local culture.
Design Challenge: Due to the limited and restricted urban land resources, the challenge for the architect is how to change the small sized site into a space imbued with comfortable space experience, and at the same time to improve the quality of life of the residents.

The architect combines local traditional culture into a modern delicate facade, trying to create a lively scene where people, nature, and the city live in harmony. Inspired by the process of jade making, the four stages “jade nurturing”, “jade grinding by nature”, “jade polishing” and “jade created” and difference themes are borrowed into four main spaces: interface display area, front area landscape area, display center, and backyard model area.
Research: The design is closely related to the theme of the jade making. When designing the logo, the designer use one Chinese character He (which literally means harmony) from Hefu and combine natural rough stone (the left part of the character He) with finely polished stone material(e(the left part of the character He) which indicates the process how a piece of jade is made.
Inspiration: Gamble stone is a term in the jewelry industry in China, which means that when the rough jade is covered by a layer of weathered stone skin when mined, so it is impossible to know the quality of the inside unless it is cut furtherly. The entrance of Hefu Display Center uses simple stone material with jade-like texture, which is untraditional and the hidden linear lighting makes the entrance visually lighter, which resembles a layer furtherly cut into the gamble stone that draws people’s attention to explore inside.
Project Duration: The project started in July 2018 and finished in January 2019 in Guangzhou, China
Operation Flow: From the entrance to the backyard, from outdoor or indoor space, the jade-like texture is used throughout the building, such as the entrance gate, jade scene, the stone material for the main building, vertical building structure, reception lobby, and meeting area, etc. All the materials are carefully selected.
Team Members: Shanghai PTArchitects
Image Credits: IMAGE by Yuan Yang