Signature Facades, China

Architect: Studio505, Material: Aluminium

China’s potent scale becomes poignant in the raising of her multitudinal construction in numbers and scale. The brief offered by the client to create an open external ornamental screen that would provide the building complex a unique and unifying signature identity that dwelled in the Suzhou culture and traditions. The building program itself comprised an opera house, several theatres, cinemas, galleries, restaurants, and retail congress and research facilities. The studio505 team stuck out through several stages of the invited design competition, and they were finally awarded with the contract to design the intricate double layer façade. A late employment to the project, and the already deployed structural layout by the base building architect didn’t deter the advanced completion of the 24000m2 continuously curving façade of the main building.

The façade shaped like a parabolic half moon crescent, in plan with its section having an inner weather-proofing layer and an outer ornamental metal screen, provides shading and also gives the building its unique external appearance and identity. The metal screen seems like an abstract reflection of water textures as it emerges and continues along the 1.5Km long curve of the bay. The hexagonal matrix consists of straight lines, similar to the classical Suzhou window screen made of timber, but to achieve the final signature pattern, a second overlay modeled on the lines of free-flowing brush strokes run as random, curved lines. Each of the approximately 10sqm large individual composite façade panels consists of two inner and two outer water jet cut aluminium tiles with
the integral structural framing sandwiched in-between the two layers. This strategy allowed the architects to hide all necessary framing from view and thus create a screen that has not only a dynamic impression from the outside, but an equally stunning impression from the vast public foyer areas inside.

All information and images courtesy IA&B and the Designers. Credits and copyrights as duly mentioned.