EDO Architects: Winner of World Design Awards 2024. Located in Beijing, the Civic Center was renovated from a single-story steel structure factory building composed of a six-span steel framework. The design team retained the existing structural columns, dug courtyards and divided spaces, so as to form different functional clusters serving as a convenience service center, enterprise service center, cultural exhibitions, libraries, small theaters and offices, building a miniature city surrounding their respective courtyards.

The courtyard serves as a transitional space between the clusters, providing users with natural landscape and good ventilation. Each courtyard has its distinct storytelling form. From north to south, there are five courtyards: the Place of Qing Stream(Qingxi Hecht), Outting in Fine Weather(Shengri Xunfang), Jiuzhou Qing Characters(Jiuzhou Qingyan), Torrential River and Broad Grassland(Chaoping Yekuo), Vitality of Dead Wood(Kumu Fengchun), which are surrounded by blooming lilacs in spring, crape myrtle flowers in summer, red maple in autumn, and green bamboo in winter. The integration of bright sunshine, light rain and gentle breezes, green plants, and the flower fragrance and leaves with landscape, rain and snow, flowers and stones, and plants constitute a different atmosphere tone. All these natural elements face the sky, creating a peaceful and serene ambiance and inspiring endless imagination.

The corridor connecting the courtyard and the rooms is like a traditional covered corridor connecting the public areas, internal office areas, and outdoor spaces. The design team broke the traditional structure of a double-corridor layout and removed several rooms to leave a terrace or space under the eaves connected with the courtyard, making the transition between indoor and outdoor gentler and smoother. People walking there can feel the interpenetration of different forms and brightness in spaces.

Courtyards and skylights were fully utilized to allow natural daylight flooding in the interior space. In the foyer and the office hall, sky light slowly pours down, creating a quiet and harmonious atmosphere. At the corridor corner, natural scenes are introduced, and natural daylight is utilized to create a varying brightness of the space.

1. Pipeline Integration

In order to maintain the existing building height and keep the space capacity of the four floors and the indoor net height (3.6m for the first two floors and 4.2m for the third and fourth floors), the design team has solved the problems of steel beam perforation, pipeline beam perforation and main pipe diversion visually through precise pipeline synthesis and three-dimensional modeling. In addition, the shortage of net height in a large area has finally been tackled.

2. Sky Courtyard

To guarantee that people can enter the courtyard comfortably from the interior, the area where the courtyard is positioned needs to be lowered by 600mm, which makes the lower space of the current tight floor height even more constrained. Therefore, the design team arranged the main sky courtyard on the garage, where the floor height could be greatly reduced. Meanwhile, the height of the lowered space of 600mm is adopted as the thickness of planting soil, so as to meet the basic soil requirements for planting.

3. Exterior Wall Treatment The building facade applies the dry-hanging curtain wall system. In order to reduce the use of framing materials, the design team adopted the module joint of 300*900, and only used the module joint of 300 in the area of the small window matrix, so as to meet the requirements of the small window opening of 300*600.

Project Details:-
Firm
EDO Architects

Architect
Chen Ximin

Project Name
Heavenward Courtyard — Beijing Tongzhou Lucheng Civic Center

Project Category
Cultural Built

Team
Architecture: Chen Ximin, Li Chuanchen, Chen Shanshan, Zhang Xu, Shen Ming; Interior: Chen Ximin, Deng Jianbin, Sun Junjie, Yu Minglun, Zhang Yu; Landscape: Chen Ximin, Wang Yulong, Li Shengchen, Liu Yijia, Jiang Bowen; Structure: Meng Qingqiang; Equipment: Ma Yuan, Jiang Bowen; Mechanical and Electrical: Yang Xu, Wang Kai

Project Location
Beijing

Country
China

Photography ©Credit
Jin Weiqi

EDO Architects embraces the philosophy of “learning from nature and drawing from the heart.” Our work delves into the dynamic relationships between space, people, and the natural world and explores how architecture interacts with diverse regional, cultural, and economic contexts. We seek meaningful ways for architecture to exist and evolve.

Through the concept of “weak architecture,” we address the delicate balance between spatial quality and environmental impact. Guided by a quest for the “spirit of space,” we craft comfortable, inviting environments with a distinctive vision. Using poetic, sustainable materials, we create spaces that are not only physically engaging but also deeply rooted in their context, embodying a harmonious dialogue with their surroundings.

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