Customer Experience Center for BMW by ARCHIHOPE
The customer experience center for BMW is located at the junction of Zhenhai Road and Gangcheng Road in Qianhai Cooperation Zone, Shenzhen. Taking into account both the hot and humid environment and conforming to the spirit of the city, the designers reinterpreted the existing building based on the design principle of sustainable development.
The project is a transformation from an existing old workshop building, and the designers focused on the problems such as architectural facade, noise, shading, ventilation and daylighting and then rejuvenated the inherent vitality of overall project. The designers succinct stacked cube boxes, which made the architecture look like containers arranged in geometric pattern and integrated the features of modern industry into the texture of urban streets.
A building with a sense of life should not only form an exterior interior echo with the urban context, but also vary with the dawn or dusk and the four seasons. The design team adopted a passive building prevented-heat strategy that using PVDF fluorocarbon coating perforated plate, perforated aluminum plate and round hole perforated plate on the facade. In addition to forming a “composite skin” with a double-layer curtain wall, the design also makes it possible to filter sunlight into diffuse light to provide natural ventilation and stable temperature for indoor space.
Another advantage of perforated plate is that it can display rich changes in texture effect and clear layers of blocks surface by properly controlling the proportion of material and texture. Besides ensuring good daylighting, it is also covered with a layer of “veil” on the building facade to create a mysterious and science fiction atmosphere at the same time.
The overall building directly reflects the movement and transformation of the sunlight as the sun rises from east and sets in west, and shows the light and shadow effect to the extreme. Sustainability” emphasizes a kind of development which includes the development expectation into the design concept so as to allow the architecture to share the same breath and the common destiny with the city.
Along with the general development trend of the special economic zone and to meet the needs of office and logistics expansion, the design extends the office area to the area which is originally open to below. The facade is made of double Low-E hollow glass, which can prevent the outdoor heat from entering the room, and can also completely keep the heat indoor in winter, effectively improving the indoor comfort.
The Urban Texture’s Steel Exterior and Candyfloss Heart
If the facade is likened to rigid design language just like containers on the quay, then the language of the interior is turned into a flexible one like coastline that is a deeper translation of the spiritual attributes of the texture in the Greater Bay Area. In response to the geographical features of Qianhai, “setting sail” was determined by the designers as the interior design concept in which a large number of conceptual shapes consisting of coastlines with rolling waves and creative shapes would be used in space.
The project reconstructs the muscles and bones from the original building structure made of steel and concrete. In order to make a large number of columns on the border of the original two structures “disappear”, the designers transformed the columns into arc-shaped walls, incorporating them into the structure with sail shapes. By utilizing the floating characteristics between materials and space skillfully to blur the virtual and real boundaries of “Existence” and “Nothingness”, the question left over by disorder original upright columns is weakened.
Wandering the “Coastline”
In addition, the sale traffic flow on the first floor is more distinct from the after-sale traffic flow on the second floor. The area on the second floor is divided into a beverage bar counter and a customer rest area. The artistic bar is surrounded by wave shapes hovering and falling from the ceiling, forming a harmonious relationship with the continuous wavy wave shapes of the ceiling. The functional attribute of the beverage bar counter also implies the essential meaning of “water”.
Customers sit around by the side of the bar counter, and the external scenery and daylight shine through the grille gaps into the room. Space aesthetics is the control and triumph of designers over materials, methods, and imagination. The water ripple stamped stainless steel is used to echo the outer glass guardrail, stippling the unique agility and clarity of “water” in the tasteful and tranquil pure white foamy waves, presenting a sparkling waterscape like “the rolling waves glitter like gold and silent shadows in the water glimmer like jade”.
The entire leisure area is skillfully divided by bookshelves, allowing customers to enjoy themselves without being disturbed, either finding a quiet place to take a nap, or reading at will or gazing freely at the distant view. When the night takes away all the heat and clamor of the day and the sunset glow ripples with the last trace of beauty in the building with both steel exterior and candyfloss heart, lights scattered on the facade will light up, responding to the crisscrossing streamer of car tail lights under a slow speed shutter.
The metabolism of a city is just like the change in the four seasons and alternation of night and day. And with the sustainable design concept, the spirit and body of Greater Bay Area of Qianhai are converged into the grand vision of the Special Economic Zone to build a future city.
Location: Qianhai, Shenzhen, China
Architect: ARCHIHOPE
Chief Designer: Hihope Zhu
Concept Design Team: Jane Fang, Xu Chang
Deepening Design Team: Tan Chuanli, Zhao Qing, Deng Guanying, He Mengjun, etc.
Total Floor Space: 8,155 square meters
Main Materials: Building: Perforated Aluminum Plate, Low-E Hollow Glass, etc; Interior: GRG, Recycled Paper Tubes, Wood Veneers, Water Ripple Stamped Stainless Steel, etc.
Completion Date: December 28th, 2022
Photographes: Vincent Wu, Courtesy of ARCHIHOPE
