Tag Archives: China

China Opens the World’s Largest Building

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New Century Global Centre is a multipurpose building in Chengdu, China. The building has 1,700,000 square meters of floor space, making it the world’s biggest building measured by floor space. It is half a million square feet larger than the former title holder, Dubai’s International Airport Terminal 3. It is 3 times the size of the Pentagon.

The Boeing Everett Factory in Everett, Washington has the largest volume, and the Aalsmeer Flower Auction Building in Aalsmeer, Netherlands, has the largest footprint.

Nearly 400,000 square meters of the building will be devoted to shopping. It will also house offices, conference rooms, a university complex, two commercial centers, hotels, an IMAX cinema, a “Mediterranean village”, a pirate ship, a skating rink and a 5,000 square meter artificial beach.

The building was designed by award-winning British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid.

The Intercontinental Hotel will feature 1,009 rooms that are spread over 6 x 8 story blocks around the edge of the complex.

While parts of the shopping area are open, the main opening is planned for 22 August 2013.

Related: Underground Hotel, Shimao Wonderland – Wonderful Low Impact Woodland House

Underground Hotel – Shimao Wonderland

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view of propose 'underground hotel' - build into a cliff

Shimao Wonderland Intercontinental by Atkins, Bristol, United Kingdom

This is a concept design for Shimao Wonderland Intercontinental in Songjiang, China by Atkins (Bristol, United Kingdom). The design was shortlisted at the World Architecture Festival 2009

The client’s brief called for a unique solution to a problem of siting the hotel in such a way that only 2 levels projected above the rock face of the 90m deep quarry. Particular request for underwater public areas and guestrooms was successfully accommodated in the design. The concept adopted the image of a green hill cascading down the rock face as a series of terraced landscaped hanging gardens. The central vertical circulation atrium connecting the quarry base with the ground level is in the form of a transparent glass ‘waterfall’
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The winning architectural team includes Paul Rice, Hu Yali, Zhang Jian and Ding Fang from Atkins Shanghai led by Martin Jochman from Atkins in Bristol.

The building is under construction with an expected completion in 2013 or 2014.

Related: Headquarters of HuaiNan Animation Technology Industrial Park

Amazingly Flexible 344 Square Foot Room Can Transform Into 24 Different Rooms

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Gary Chan, a Hong Kong Architect, has created an very cool modular apartment (32 square meters) that can transform into 24 different rooms using sliding walls.

Box of tricks

His latest effort, which took a year and cost just over $218,000, he calls the “Domestic Transformer.” The allusion to toy robots seems apt, given the science-fiction quality of the color scheme – mostly black and silver, washed in eerie yellow light.
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Acoustic privacy is limited. When Mr. Chang is entertaining, anyone who wants to use the phone must do so in the shower (also known as “the phone booth”). Still, Mr. Chang is determined to see his ideas put to use in new multi-unit buildings. He has invited a number of developers to visit, and has meticulously documented his apartment’s history in a book, “My 32m2 Apartment: A 30-Year Transformation”. Buying a new apartment might have been a less expensive solution to his storage problem, he admitted. “But why do that?” he asked as he stood in the kitchen making noodle soup. “I see my place as an ongoing experiment.”

Related: Great Furniture for Small Spaces

Headquarters of HuaiNan Animation Technology Industrial Park

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Headquarters of HuaiNan Animation Technology Industrial Park

Headquarters of HuaiNan Animation Technology Industrial Park

Located in HuaiNan city, AnHui province in China, this project is the headquarters for the park that is going to be built.

Building Concept:
The idea of the buildings massing and spaces comes from the melting ice cubes.
Ice cubes tend to create a soft connection between each other as they melt down. This concept starts with normal boxes through which architects get integrated and fluent spaces by dissembling and reconnect those boxes with curved surfaces. This kind of space organization brings the building much more complexity and diversity.

HuaiNan Animation Technology Industrial Park

Overhead view of HuaiNan Animation Technology Industrial park

Ice Cube Pattern: Architects took the cladding gaps as part of the designing elements while they confronted with the cladding division problem, same to the massing, concept for the cladding also came from ice cubes.
Ice cubs present an edge-to-center colour gradient due to the refraction happened as light beam comes through. Edges always seem darker and more solid than it appears in the center. Architects tried to get the same effect by controlling the gaps distance and density, following expansion images are the final result for claddings.

Design by Sunlay Design, China.