Archinect - News

Powerhouse Company's "Paper Roof" reception center has been completed in Tianjin, China

2021-01-15T12:26:00-05:00

Powerhouse Company's "Paper Roof," the new design for a reception center in Tianjin, China has been completed. The form is a transparent glass block topped by a light sweeping roof inspired by traditional Chinese architecture.

Photo by Weiqi Jin

The roof raises 18.5 meters at its highest point with a surface measurement of 30 meters x 50 meters. The canopy is made from powder-coated steel, colored a tone intended to mimic the sky.

Photo by Weiqi Jin

Inside the pavilion, a large atrium offers panoramic views of the surrounding lake and gardens. The second floor includes offices and a viewing balcony in addition to seating areas for small and large gatherings.

Photo by Weiqi Jin

Bernard Tschumi completes major museum in China

2019-01-23T17:12:00-05:00

Award-winning Swiss-French architect Bernard Tschumi has completed the Tianjin Binhai Exploratorium, a massive new museum that will be joining MVRDV's futuristic library as one of five main attractions in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin's growing recreational district.

Photo by Kris Provoost.

Set to open in Fall 2019, the Exploratorium will celebrate the historical and contemporary industrial achievements of the region through the use of cutting-edge, interactive technology such as VR. Considered the birthplace of the Chinese industrial revolution, exhibitions will explore the city's role as a center for manufacturing, space research, and widespread urbanization. In addition, the project will hold facilities for events, as well as galleries, offices, restaurants and retail.

Photo by Kris Provoost.

Tschumi designed the Exploratorium, "as a building for the past, present, and the future of Tianjin," the architect describes. Conceived as a series of seven conical cylinders, the uniqu...

Books! Books everywhere! MVRDV completes Tianjin Binhai Public Library

2017-11-02T16:02:00-04:00

MVRDV, in collaboration with local architects Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute, has completed the much anticipated Binhai Public Library in Tianjin, China, and first photos reveal a mountainous topography of curved bookshelves creating an amorphous atrium that holds a spherical auditorium inside its center like a precious pearl within the rugged oyster shell.

While renderings from last summer still depict "The Eye" as a volume with a polished, mirrored surface — with the intent of creating a 360 degree panorama that also pulls the image of the park in front of the building into the interior of the atrium — the photos now show the auditorium skin as luminous, almost paper-like translucent.

Read on for more images and a project description from the architects.

Tianjin Binhai Library was designed and built in a record-breaking time
of only three years due to a tight schedule imposed by the local
municipality. Next to many media rooms, it offers space f...

McGregor Coxall to design “bird airport” wetland park in Tianjin

2017-02-16T21:12:00-05:00

Australian practice McGregor Coxall had the winning scheme to transform a degenerate landfill site into a new migratory-bird wetland sanctuary park in Tianjin, China. The Asian Development Bank and the Port of Tianjin co-launched the park design competition in response to the increasing loss of critical bird habitats and declining shorebird populations in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, which an estimated 50 million migratory shorebirds use every year. The EAAF extends to Alaska and Russia's Taimyr Peninsula in the north, East Asia and parts of Southeast Asia, and Australia and New Zealand in the south.

As a pilot project in China's national sponge city program, the project in the Lingang region is a 60-hectare masterplan of constructed wetlands, parkland, and urban forest.

Described as a “bird airport” by the architects, the wetland sanctuary will allow weary migratory birds to feed and rest, while human visitors can check out the Water Pavilion education and research center or t...

A closer look at "the eye" in MVRDV's Tianjin Library

2016-06-22T14:29:00-04:00

While pronounced ocular structural features are not unheard of (consider the exterior of DS+R's Broad Museum) Winy Maas, co-founder of MVRDV, is drawing attention to his firm's mirrored spherical auditorium sited in the almost complete 34,200 square meter Tianjin Library.

“The Eye is the centre of the library," Maas explained in a press release. "It ‘hollows out’ the building and creates, out of bookshelves, an environment to sit, to read, to hang out, to climb and to access, to create an organic social space. In its heart is the auditorium which mirrors the environment, giving a 360 degree panorama of the space inside; a truly reflective and pensive environment.”

The library will likely open to the public by mid-2017.

What else is MVRDV up to?

Following warehouse explosion, three new high-rises in Tianjin planned for demolition amid anti-corruption campaign

2015-12-16T18:26:00-05:00

China is reportedly planning to demolish three new high-rise [residential] buildings [in Tianjin, which] are up to 30 floors taller than originally planned...It’s the latest blow to the [city], which saw a devastating explosion at a warehouse in its port in August...state media pointed out that...the scale of illegal construction meant the building was unsafe, [deeming] the 'completely corrupt project' [as] unusable, and to be demolished was 'its destiny.'

Beijing's challenges to become the center of Jing-Jin-Ji — a supercity of 130 million people

2015-07-21T08:00:00-04:00

For decades, China’s government has tried to limit the size of Beijing, the capital, through draconian residency permits. Now, the government has embarked on an ambitious plan to make Beijing the center of a new supercity of 130 million people. The planned megalopolis, a metropolitan area that would be about six times the size of New York’s, is meant to revamp northern China’s economy and become a laboratory for modern urban growth.

China's Manhattan replica continues to lie abandoned as economy slows

2015-02-11T13:39:00-05:00

Manhattan may be a bustling metropolis filled with busy people rushing off to work, the theatre, restaurants and the myriad attractions the city has to offer. A replica in China, complete with knock-offs of Rockefeller Center and the Hudson River, is missing that one key element that makes New York, New York: the people. [...] “All of these tall buildings just appeared,” one local man recently told CTV News.

Previously: China’s replica of Wall Street is full of half-built, deserted skyscrapers and floods regularly

Kohn Pedersen Fox's Tianjin megastructure "Riverside 66" now open to the public

2014-09-30T23:53:00-04:00

After 10 years, Kohn Pedersen Fox's Riverside 66 in Tianjin, China successfully reached completion as scheduled and officially opened to the public on September 26. The grand opening also marked the completion of the final phase of the main pedestrian He Ping Lu boulevard, which aims to become the centerpiece of the developing Heping commercial district.

Read on for more about the building's design.

The 350-meter commercial megastructure is hard to miss at street level. The structure's curved façade converges with the opposing south façade to create a six-story building suitable for the Heping District's smaller scale context. Its "super shell" is claimed to be one of the region's longest single structures, built with 22 seven-story-tall concrete ribs and over 10,000 glass panels. In a statement, KPF Design Principal James von Klemperer describes the structural frame as "what it must be to see a whale skeleton from the inside. Herman Melville would be inspired.”

Inside, the structure e...

China’s replica of Wall Street is full of half-built, deserted skyscrapers and floods regularly

2014-06-30T15:10:00-04:00

The skyline of Yujiapu in the Chinese city of Tianjin looks more like an expensive, abandoned movie set than it does “China’s new Manhattan,” as the financial district was once billed. A patina of dust covers the glass doors of the 47 office buildings and hotels that still sit empty, and in come cases unfinished.

Construction Update: Kohn Pedersen Fox's Riverside 66 in Tianjin, China

2014-02-27T15:52:00-05:00

Kohn Pedersen Fox's Riverside 66 in Tianjin, China is steadily working its way to completion, scheduled for this September. The 10-year retail project will be one of China's longest buildings, with a 350-meter "super shell" made of 22 seven-story concrete ribs and 10,000 panels of glass. At this point, Riverside 66's structure is now complete and its enclosure will be finished in April.

The project is already decked out with numerous awards including the NY AIA Design Award, the Architectural Review Future Award, and a recent pre-LEED Gold certification.

Check out the newest construction photos and images KPF shared with us:

"When it opens this fall, the megastructure of the Riverside 66 retail project in Tianjin will complete a new phase of He Ping Lu becoming the centerpiece of the Hai He commercial district, and will be prominently visible from the Hai He River...

In the words of KPF Design Principal James von Klemperer, 'Now that the structural frame is complete, to wander inside a ...

National Maritime Museum Entry for Tianjin by HAO + AI

2013-04-15T17:51:00-04:00

Along with three other teams, the collaboration of HAO / Holm Architecture Office and Archiland International (AI) has been invited to compete in the architectural competition for the new National Maritime Museum near the city of Tianjin in northern China.

von Gerkan, Marg and Partners to Design Tianjin Exhibition Center

2013-03-19T15:15:00-04:00

German architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp) have won the first prize in the international design competition for the new exhibition center in Tianjin, China. gmp beat out tough competition from Fuksas, HHP, NBBJ/BIAD, and others.

Tianjin Hotel Entry by HAO / Holm Architecture Office

2012-12-11T13:22:00-05:00

Danish firm HAO / Holm Architecture Office has shared with us its competition entry for a high-end hotel in Tianjin, Northern China.

Tianjin Samaranch Memorial Museum - Construction Update

2012-08-09T17:27:00-04:00

Danish/American practice HAO / Holm Architecture Office has sent us latest renderings and constructions photos of their Samaranch Memorial Museum project for former Olympic president Juan Antonio Samaranch in Tianjin, China. The initial design scheme has undergone some adjusting and fine tuning since HAO won the international competition in collaboration with Archiland Beijing last year [...]. The museum is expected to be completed by the end of 2013.

Winner of the Tianjin Samaranch Memorial Museum Competition

2011-05-23T14:01:00-04:00

Brooklyn/Copenhagen-based HAO / Holm Architecture Office in collaboration with Archiland Beijing, Kragh & Berglund landscape architects, and engineering consultants Cowi Beijing, has won first prize in a competition to design the Samaranch Memorial Museum in Tianjin, China.