Guang Yuan

A Visitor Center of Corridors

Site
Yuyuan gadern
Shanghai Municipality
China

Date
June 2016

Individual project.

Guang Yuan is the spacious corridorfor garden-viewing, which also has an implication of getting a large circle of relationships.

Although the visitor center is outside the Yuyuan Garden, it is still close connected to the Garden as well as to those buildings around. The traditional Chinese garden contains many Chinese ideologies. The garden is an introverted form; while inside the garden its structures and boundaries are indistinct. By using view borrowing, opposite scenery and twist path, the tour becomes full of savor.

The Yuyuan Garden is a traditional Chinese garden in the center of the modern city Shanghai, which is a point where traditional and modern China intertwine. The visitor center could also be a point where the old and the new culture intersect and the garden and the modern city merge.

The Site Plan of Yuyuan Garden

Analysis of Surroundings

People's Flow

The Layout of Yuyuan Mall is dense and the shop is densely covered, which lead to the congestion from the zigzag bridge to the entrance of the Yuyuan Garden.

Business Environment

There are stores of souvenir, clothing, food, Chinese medicine and gold. The Yuyuan area is lack of resting area for tourists. The ambience is not in accordance with the Yuyuan Garden’s atmosphere.

Building Height

Most of the old constructions in the Yuyuan garden have single and double floors; while the buildings in the Yuyuan Mall have more than 2 floors for the most part, which makes the boundary of the mall and the garden look like cliffs.

Design Process

Body Generation

The Yuyuan Garden was a private garden built in 1556 and is a tourist attraction in the center of Shanghai now. Imitating the Zigzag Bridge, I define the visitor center as an unique kind of bridge, which connects low and old Yuyuan Garden and the high and modern Yuyuan Mall.I separately put two entries of the visitor center in the mall and the garden. With the space in its main body being divided, the visitor center is able to have multiple flows. The cut spaces and floating skins combine separate buildings together and provide the ambiguity of garden.

Surface Design

As for the exterior skin of the building, I want to use thinner columns to support the terrace after pulling glass curtain walls away. Therefore, steel structure is chosen to enhance the overall strength. As the design of the visitor center has a special charms like water flowing, I put characters of mountains into it. Imitating The Mountain Scenes in Summer, I build up the steel structure as multiple ranges of hills. Accordingly, the mountain in the building is created.