Running through a phalanx of mid-rise apartment buildings, a covered walkway and adjacent café serve as a colorful antidote to the regimented architecture that surrounds it. Designed by Madrid company SelgasCano, the unstoppable explosion of vulnerable metal pipes and corrugated iron roofs provides a social magnet for the thousands of citizens of the city of Bailuwan. As has happened in China for the past three decades, the domain two hours’ drive from the coastal city of Qingdao was temporarily transformed into farmland. The developer takes advantage of the housing parts – which are heavily formatted in terms of location, plan and scale and regularly designed by giant Chinese corporations – but attracts buyers with a series of eye-catching and original structures, designed by foreigners. architects. At Bailuwan, in collaboration with Junya Ishigami, the developer commissioned Sou Fujimoto, Ryue Nishizawa, and SelgasCano to create these special elements, with each of the ventures executed independently to add a different touch to the architectural stew. Some of them have already been built, while others, such as a hotel and a SelgasCano residential complex, remain on hold as China’s once-thriving real estate sector now faces a monumental collapse.
The architects enlivened the city with colors and trees, along an alley (top of page), on balconies (1) and in a café (2). Photos © Iwan Baan, click to enlarge.
José Selgas and his wife Lucía Cano had never worked in China. But Xu Qunde, president of Shandong Bailuwan Company, approached them and traveled to Madrid some time before the Covid pandemic began. “It turned out to be one of our most productive clients,” says Selgas, who found that the project was fully committed to the task and open to any problems that might arise during construction. Although the apartment buildings on the site had already been designed, Xu allowed SelgasCano to load curved balconies with yellow accents on one of them. look and design a color palette and a new composition for the windows on the other. The goal of the task was to animate the apartment buildings and create visual connections, which was also achieved with the prom and cafeteria that would pass through the center of the site. The contrast with the red-brick reaspectnial monoliths couldn’t be more striking.
Selgas and Cano first thought of connecting their designs to Chinese origins. Xu rejected this approach, the only time he flatly rejected an idea. However, he agreed to integrate architecture and landscape, blurring the interior and exterior. While this strategy is deeply rooted in the design of Chinese pavilions and gardens, Bailuwan’s alley and café would not make direct allusions to antiquity. Rather, it is a new gathering of elements that SelgasCano has already used (metal tubes, corrugated sheets and acrylic panels) that respond to the particularities of the site, the program, the climate and the culture.
“We want to do less,” Selgas says. Use fewer materials, use less energy, make it lighter. “Thus, the company’s 575-foot-long covered walkway dances elegantly above the ground, open on all sides and allowing air and sunlight to flow through gaps in the irregularly shaped ceiling pieces. . Known for their colorful use of color, Selgas and Cano ultimately settled on a progression of shades ranging from willow and olive green to beige and beige. The architects insisted on employing high-quality paint to make it last for many years.
Paired angle metal tubes serve as columns and the same type of pipe is used as beams for corrugated metal roof panels. These tubes become benches when placed horizontally and hooked to the columns; SelgasCano had initially proposed using a traditional connector to join the tubes, but the visitor ended up welding the pieces together. The pavers are homemade ceramic tiles, which arrived from Spain after, surprisingly, the architects did not find suitable markings on porcelain.
The covered walkway, café (3 and 4) and multi-coloured dwellings (5) are among the new local projects coming with the Ishigami Art Museum. Photos © Iwan Baan
The northern end of the walkway is attached to an amoeba-shaped canopy that, seen from above, looks like a bulbous ball in the gut of a snake that has just eaten its prey. In the snake’s head, the architects designed the café with holes dug in the roof to allow the trees to grow. The “tree café” is the only component of the task with an enclosed space. It’s wrapped on all sides with floor-to-ceiling clear acrylic panels, which are 2 inches thick and just over 8 feet tall. SelgasCano uses acrylic in its tasks, as it weighs the weight of glass, is recyclable, and requires much less energy to manufacture, as it is heated to three hundred degrees Fahrenheit, instead of 3000 for glass. The custom acrylic was manufactured in China through a company specializing in aquariums and was delivered to the site in five giant pieces that were temporarily installed.
“The most vital component of the work is the landscape,” Selgas says. Whether you’re in the driveway or at the coffee shop, you’re surrounded by trees and plants. “In most jobs, landscaping is the last thing on your mind and the first to be removed. Not here. “
A curved metal staircase with tubular railings leads to the most comfortable seating area above the cafeteria. For the more practical surface of the concrete slab roof, Selgas and Cano specified a curtain made from recycled tires. For the cafeteria ceiling and the cantilevered ceiling ceiling, recycled wood and resin curtains were used that give the feeling of wood. The wide eaves and trees around the café protect the interiors from the full impact of the sun.
The architects also designed two wave-shaped bus shelters, clad on the inside with thin yellow and white tubes and on the outside with a reflective steel skin that helps them blend in with the surroundings. Along the driveway, they designed colorful steel canopies. for a long advertising design and six winding pavilions made of painted rebar in a rooftop garden. And, at first, just west of the walkway, they created a curvilinear terrace with a small “capsule kitchen” and lots of tables and chairs.
A lively burst of architectural exuberance, walkway and café projects motivate citizens to come and relax, explore and play, walk and hang out. By dividing assets in half, they serve as an intermediate floor for children, parents, and seniors. They are a line and a center. And they do all of this while balancing desires to stand out and be compatible, especially with nature.
Editor-in-Chief Clifford Pearson is co-author, with A. Eugene Kohn, of The World By Design, and writes about architecture and urban planning.
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