Medieval Rethink 中世纪重新思考文化中心 by QUAD studio

Medieval Rethink 中世纪重新思考文化中心 by QUAD studio is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2020 A' Design Award 银奖 in 建筑与结构设计 Competition Category.

银建筑· 2020

Medieval Rethink 中世纪重新思考文化中心

by QUAD studio

Client: QUAD studio

A' Design Award 银奖 Winner in 建筑 Category

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The Design

About Medieval Rethink 中世纪重新思考文化中心

中世纪反思是对私人委员会的回应，该委员会为广东省一个未公开的小村庄建立了文化中心，该村庄的历史可追溯到宋代，距今已有900年。占地7000平方米的四层高建筑以古老的岩层为中心，该岩层被称为“鼎奇石”，象征着村庄的起源。该项目的设计理念以展示古老村庄的历史和文化为基础，同时将新与旧联系在一起。文化中心是对古老村庄的重新诠释，也是对当代建筑的改造。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 银奖

Medieval Rethink 中世纪重新思考文化中心是 A' Design Award 银奖得主，这是授予顶级、华美而令人印象深刻的设计的极为崇高的认可。银奖得主是极其卓越、极具创造力的作品，展现出其设计师杰出的专业技能、才华与敏锐。预计Medieval Rethink 中世纪重新思考文化中心将成为一件出色的典范之作，兼具非凡的专业性与深刻的创新性。这件赢得 A' Design Award 银奖的设计是一项备受瞩目、令人钦佩的发明，造福并拓展艺术、科学、设计和技术的边界。Medieval Rethink 中世纪重新思考文化中心是一件令人羡慕的创作，它唤起渴望，带来积极的情感，并激发惊叹与赞叹。

Behind the Design

Press Kit

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

Unique Properties: The cultural centre becomes the new destination for villagers to congregate and to socially interact. Here, opportunities arise to great a truly cultural contemporary icon inspired by a historical monument that links old and new.
We make a focus in the cultural centre. An object that is the primary function, a multipurpose hall that most villagers will congregate in large social events. Other functions are clustered around the object that naturally creates internal streets and courtyards that are filled with an abundance of natural landscape.
Dimensions & Packaging: Approx. 7000 square metre GFA
Tags: cultural centre, abstraction, guangdong, songdynasty, dingqistone
Production Technology: Firstly, designers break down the village into components of Positive and Negative space. Defining functions as objects and stitching these objects together to natural courtyards of green space.
They make a focus in the cultural centre. An object that is the primary function, a multipurpose hall that most villagers will congregate in large social events. Other functions are clustered around the object that naturally creates internal streets and courtyards that are filled with an abundance of natural landscape.
Design Challenge: Cultural Differences - The cultural centre was designed for the villagers as their space for social interaction. To design the centre, designers had to meet with the villagers and discuss their personal needs for this project. Apart from understanding their culture, the main difficulties come in syphering all their needs and wants information into a design. Only when one to understand their culture can then try to rethink the whole idea of what a cultural centre means to the villager.

The Abstraction – Abstracting the village into the design took a lot of patience and work so that the final design truly depicts the chosen narrative. By stripping off the facade, a picture like frame is left behind. What it does is it focuses audience's eye towards the objects within the frame. If one to superimpose an image of the medieval village in the frame, a framed skyline of the medieval village appears. Abstraction occurs when the skyline is then pixelated. Using dark and light shades of pixels, designers generate an abstraction with a notion of depth. Abstraction creates a shading device and multi layering of the facade together with the objects inside the cultural centre creates a rich composition depicting a visual depth beyond the facade.
Recreating the village – Ultimately, to create a place that will enhance the lives of the villagers. Creating a narrative for the cultural centre not only help the design collective to create a very special place, it is also an attempt to capture an emotional response for any individual visiting the place. The medieval village has already manifested itself in the planning of the functional objects, the facade and also in the internal public realm.
Research: The design team has gone through a thorough research on the context and the history of the Zhu Pu Village, the study has become a very influential part on building a narrative on the project and later being represented through the design of the spaces.
Exploration of the existing village - Walking around the village, inspired by the scale and how man and nature exist in harmony. Beautifully preserved, the village of Zhu Pu dates to the Song dynasty. With its organic concentric planning, it relates itself to many medieval Chinese urban planning principles.
Inspiration: Medieval Rethink was an opportunity to recreate a medieval environment in a contemporary cultural setting. The narrative and design approach of the cultural centre has been extensively explored previously. Located in the norther province of Guangdong, this Contemporary Cultural Centre will not only showcase the history culture of the 900-year-old village, it will also function as a cultural exhibition centre and will attract thousands of visitors from all over the region.
Project Duration: The project started in August 2017 in an undisclosed Village in Fujian, China.
Operation Flow: As the ground floor is an active floor with many active functions and visitor, the cultural centre is designed to free up the ground plane as much as possible to allow for pedestrian traffic.
Team Members: Wai Tang
Kelvin Chu
Landy Liu
Wesley Fung
Samuel Tam
Image Credits: Image #1, Pictury
Image #2, Submarina
Image #3, SAN CG
Image #4, SAN CG
Image #5 SAN CG