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2016

ChengDu Science city

& City Hall

ChengDu - China

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When approaching new cities in the XXI century we have to take into consideration that it means an intervention in a bigger scale. In other words it translates in an addition to a urbanization process of the territory, a global scale.

In the case of Chengdu Science city, we look to change the urbanization process into a more organic, and less aggressive one.

The creation of an urban tissue that breaks the regular grid and surrounds environmental focal points. The integration of a green network that intertwines with the public space. It is in this last part that we deepen. As a first stage hypothesis we consider that the intervention that the city has to do in the territory has to be subtle and with a few effects, however we know that in the case of China and specifically Chengdu, we are dealing with a industrialized city, a big scale environment that has as a primary focus the economy and the technological development.

In order to mix the concept of a subtle impact with a competitive, functional and profitable city it might be necessary to look back to the basic and more traditional way of developing cities. Introducing back the smaller scale to change the way of living.

This small scale searches to make the city more walkable, avoiding as much as possible the emissions of carbon monoxide produced by excessive car use. It searches to implement more sustainable public transportation and private energy saving. It promotes a more livable city with bigger public space and wider green areas that mix with the built context.

However, we know that in some cases the small scale breaks to allow monumentality in certain focal points. That is the case of the Chengdu city hall.

As it is possible to see in the urban tissue the buildings flow along the blocks connecting themselves with organic shapes and bridges. This process generates a series of interstitial spaces that work as a very complex network of small public and semi public spaces.

The City hall replicates this concept in a more geometrical way, creating internal courtyards that can be transited freely by the people. This whole idea inspired on the traditional Chinese house, the Siheyuan. The aforementioned adapts the idea of small public spaces with an increasing relevance of the built areas surrounding it as deeper as the person goes into the building.

To be able to achieve this I created a translation of the principal characteristics of a government building; closeness, monumentality, security, secrecy; giving it a more permeable approach, opening certain points in the geometry but hiding them so only by getting closer to the building they could be seen. Creating thus, a  smaller scale in a monumental complex.