ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN & RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF SCUT CO., LTD: Winner of World Design Awards 2024. The industrial park is located in Cuishan Lake Industrial Park, Kaiping City, Guangdong Province. The project is a comprehensive supporting building for the steel structure production base, the main office area in it is about 8000m² (and the living area is about 7000m²). In addition to the regular industrial functions such as office and service, the client also hopes to create an innovative research environment and artistic social space.

Site Thinking – Integration of Garden and Industry

Since the production factory in 40000m² occupies most of the construction land, the main building has to be arranged in a narrow site of about 50m wide and 250m long. Except the northeast side close to the mountain, the site is surrounded by large industrial factories that have been built or are to be built. How to realize the diversified positioning of the project in this conflict-ridden environment is the main point of design thinking.

The scheme chooses to break the centralized layout mode commonly used in industrial buildings. By decomposing the building volume into multiple functional modules, it creates the staggered architectural layout to adapt to the narrow site, and the characteristic industrial space with multi-level courtyards. Continuous courtyard walls and corridors are set up along the surrounding roads to limit and connect the building complex, which not only ensures the internal and external isolation of the dynamic and static functional areas, but also maintains the internal and external sight contact, and enlivens the dull public landscape along the industrial park.

The integrated design of architecture and landscape tries to use the traditional gardening language as reference to reinterpret the new industrial “garden” environment with contemporary forms, which not only creates a unique all-weather experience as a garden travailing for employees, but also provides a rich space carrier for enterprise research and cultural interpretation.

Spatial Language

Simple building blocks, combined with simple garden building elements such as walls, corridors, and frames, form a three levels main garden sequence, as well as an interpenetrating secondary courtyard and platforms.

The open corridor main entrance and the entrance garden in the geometric landscape is used to replace the conventional traffic square and ritual entrance of the normal industrial building. The white corridor divides a small fish-viewing side court on the side of the entrance garden, extending the space depth of the view.

Along the folding walkway in the center of the water surface, you can stroll through the entrance garden and turn into the overhead floor of the main building – office and research building, and reach the office hall and conference hall on both sides respectively.

In addition to the still water and fish pond in the entrance garden, the water garden is also equipped with a large rectangular shallow pool. The focus in this garden is the circular staff activity center – “Lake Center Pavilion”, which is spread along the water surface. The water surface is surrounded by hydrophilic platforms, overhead corridors, etc., forming open indoor, outdoor and semi-outdoor activity places.

The living garden and sports ground are surrounded by the canteen and living area.

Combined with the main garden sequence, the building volumes are also subtracted to form a rich indoor and outdoor landscape, and provide a complex outdoor space and communication place for each functional area.

Building Language

The design attempts to express the space artistic conception of traditional gardens with space prototypes and colors, instead of pursuing visual reproduction in form. The structural details focus on the technical characteristics of industrial buildings and steel structure enterprises: such as the large overhanging corridor supported by steel structure, the abstract “moon door” shape of the entrance and the transparent courtyard wall constituted with the L-shape section steel, and the prefabricated concrete blocks, artificial stones, gravel, terrazzo, etc. in low-cost landscape pavement.

On the basis of the standard industrial form, the façade forms a “piano key” shape rhythm with the concave-convex and black-and-white profiled steel exterior wall modules, which provides an overall external architectural background for the park in terms of scale and color.

Landscape Language

The landscape design continues the traditional garden language of abstract expression of nature. Under the overall background of white corridor and courtyard wall, it shows the landscape picture with black and white gravel, quiet water surface, zigzag path, etc. in simple color and shape, on which the landscape trees and artistic installations are decorated to become the finishing touch of each garden.

Design Values The design expression with contemporary gardens has created a unique park environment that combines technology and art. It becomes a place for research and communication, a place for display and social interaction, a place to convey corporate culture, and even a birthplace of art and fashion.

Project Details:-
Firm
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN & RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF SCUT CO., LTD

Architect
Xiaoxin He, Ping Su

Project Name
Guangdong Jianbang Hangxiao Prefabricated Building Industrial Park

Project Category
Office Building Built

Team
Xiaoxin He, Ping Su (Lead Designers); Lin Lin, Han Zhang, Yiquan Ruan, Jing Fan, Yanbin Zhang, Lu Jiang (Architecture Design Team); Zhaohui Wu, Shuyin Feng (Landscape Design Team); Junyu Liang, Qi Xie, Pianpian Chen (Interior Design Team)

Project Location
Kaiping City, China

Country
China

Photography ©Credit
Alpha Photography (Lin Zou, Qinfang Liao)

The ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN & RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF SCUT CO., LTD, founded in 1979, is a renowned Class-A design and research institute in China and one of the earliest established such institutions within key universities. With a staff of over a thousand employees, it boasts robust technical prowess, with over half of its technical personnel holding master’s degrees or higher.

Through more than 40 years of practice, the Institute has cultivated several flagship design segments, including cultural and exposition buildings, educational architecture, super high-rise buildings, sports venues, convention and exhibition centers, residential housing, transportation facilities, etc.

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