Published on World Architecture News -- 

Quad Studio designed Medieval Rethink, a cultural centre inspired by a 900 year old medieval village from the Song dynasty situated on the outskirts of a Fujian city

The building was designed to respond to its historic surroundings by rebuilding a mini village inside the cultural centre, in order to have a better preservation molded from the original. The project is under construction in Guangdong China and set to be completed in the second quarter of 2021.

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. Located in the northern 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.

The cultural centre becomes the new destination for villagers to congregate and to socially interact. Here, opportunities arise to greet a truly cultural contemporary icon inspired by a historical monument that links old with the new.

The centre works as 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.

Quad Studio’s original narrative was to capture the essence of the medieval village, this has been achieved in the disposition of objects in the cultural centre. To enhance the idea of capture, Quad revisited the original façade, asking the question, “what if we were able to capture the village whilst maintaining its functionality for solar shading?” To achieve this effect, they explored the notion of abstraction.

Stripping off the façade, left a picture like frame. The purpose of it is to focus one’s eye towards the objects within the frame. Then if an image of this medieval village was superimposed into the frame, what would be left to see is a framed skyline of the medieval village. Abstraction occurs when the skyline is then pixelated; using dark and light shades of pixels, an abstraction was generated with a notion of depth. This abstraction creates a shading device and the multi layering of the façade, together with the objects inside the cultural centre, creates a rich composition depicting a visual depth beyond the façade.

Creating a narrative for the cultural centre also attempts to capture an emotional response from any individual visiting the place. The medieval village has already manifested itself in the planning of the functional objects, the façade and also in the internal public realm.

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