After Renovation_View of 24-hour store from Zhongyang Road. Image © Bowen Hou
- Architects: UA GROUP
- Location: No.1 Hunan Road, Gulou District, Nanjing, China
- Lead Architects: Jin Ma, Zhou Pu, Peixin Liu, Yu Yan
- Area: 4693.0 m2
- Project Year: 2017
- Photographs: Bowen Hou
After Renovation_Intersection of Hunan Road and Zhongyang Road. Image © Bowen Hou
Text description provided by the architects. Located at No.1 Hunan road, the junction of Hunan road and Zhongyang Road, the Nanjing PHOENIX PLAZA is adjacent to Xuanwu Lake on the east and Xuanwumen Station of Metro Line 1 underground.
After Renovation_Scene along the Hunan Road. Image © Bowen Hou
The main transformation is along the Zhongyang Road and Hunan Road as well as the part of indoor atrium, with its style stands out as follows:
4-Additional envelope
Firstly, the use of architectural vocabulary. The design chooses restrained, simple and clean form instead of complicated ones. For example, the red building where the 24-hour bookstore located is the work of the last century. In order to express respect for the old building and reflect an even more open and inclusive attitude, the design uses a “glass box” to wrap the first and second level of the building.
After Renovation_24-hour store. Image © Bowen Hou
The surface of the glass adds some lateral skin structure, which can see the traces of the old building behind it through the glass. Not only does it make the architecture exist in a visual effect of existence and nothingness, but also the combination with the old building is more graceful and poetic.
After Renovation_Additonal stores along the Zhongyang Road. Image © Bowen Hou
Secondly, the choice of material color. There are mainly three colors. The first one is white . Many aluminum components, including the keel supported at the back are treated as pure white.
After Renovation_Additonal stores along the Zhongyang Road. Image © Bowen Hou
6-Analysis graph of the envelope along Zhongyang Road
After Renovation_Interior of 24-hour store. Image © Bowen Hou
The second is black and the last one is the middle color of the glass, which forms three color relationships of “black, white and gray” and is more in line with the positioning of cultural business.
After Renovation_Interior of 24-hour store. Image © Bowen Hou
After Renovation_Interior of 24 hour store. Image © Bowen Hou
Finally, the extension of the business interface. In this design, the points of transformation are fragmented and complicated in general. But through the targeted selection of some important nodes for design, especially the transformation of the faint overhead layer along the Zhongyang Road on the east into a row of shops, and the unification of the material color and the division mode of these nodes, it gives people a more complete and continuous visual experience of the business interface.
After Renovation_View of 24-hour store from Zhongyang Road. Image © Bowen Hou