The lonely warehouse that once withdrew from the stage of history, gorgeous counterattack into a high-profile international conference and cultural center - "World Parlor", what kind of "Metamorphosis" was experienced in the middle?
In the second half of 2021, the North Bund penetration and comprehensive transformation and upgrading project was completed, the Pujiang Yangtze River terminal section was officially opened to the public, and the "World Living Room" composed of three conference buildings attracted many tourists to take photos and punch cards with its unique style. Different from the modern style of the traditional conference hall, the "World Living Room" has a red and blue clear water brick wall, which looks simple and thick, and two of the conference buildings are converted from centuries-old warehouses.
It is worth mentioning that the transformation of these two old warehouses is full of scientific and technological elements. According to the information disclosed by the design and construction party, with the help of new digital technologies such as 3D laser scanning and deep modeling, the century-old warehouse accurately reproduces the historical appearance from appearance to detail; including 460,000 old bricks, nearly 80% of the historical elements have been reused.
In the North Bund "World Living Room" building group, two are renovated and updated from old buildings, and the pictures are real scenes and renderings
Two dock warehouses were "excavated"
The discovery of two century-old warehouses can be said to be a "bonus" for the North Bund penetration and comprehensive renovation and upgrading project.
Over the years, the two warehouses have undergone many renovations, surrounded by gray cement, and their appearance has been unremarkable, not included in the list of historical buildings, and thus covered with a layer of historical dust.
The North Bund penetration and comprehensive renovation and upgrading project has become a turning point.
As a new growth pole for the development of Shanghai, the development difficulty of the North Bund is higher than that of Lujiazui. The North Bund, which is almost the same age as the Port of Shanghai, cannot simply raise high-rise buildings on the flats on the beach. This coastline, which has rich cultural resources and historical accumulation, also undertakes the mission of continuing the historical context.
Before the project started, the professional design team of East China Architectural Design and Research Institute conducted a large and meticulous historical study on the Yangtze River Wharf Area, and a detail attracted the attention of experts. "We compared the scene with the historical photos and found that the outline of the two buildings is somewhat similar to the buildings in the photos. With doubts in mind, we retrieved more detailed historical materials from the Shanghai Urban Construction Archives. The study found that the two warehouses existed a hundred years ago, and its façade should have been a clear water wall. A staff member said.
In order to confirm the research results, the construction personnel selected small walls for testing. After hand-stripping the cement of the outer wall, the interior reveals a wall of red and blue clear water. At this point, the two old buildings were revealed.
The cement facades of the two old warehouses have been stripped off to reveal the traditional clear-water brick walls, which can be faintly recognized in detail
After historical research, the two old buildings were first warehouses No. 2 and No. 3 of Yangtze River Wharf (formerly Mitsubishi Wharf), which were built from 1902 to 1903 and designed by the then Meichang foreign architect Shi Medeli, and although they were later rebuilt, they still basically maintained their original historical form. Over the past hundred years, they have witnessed key nodes in urban development and history, and have high cultural value.
After an assessment by experts from all sides, warehouses 2 and 3 were retained and restored according to the needs of the use of large public cultural and convention activity centers.
Building renovation introduces digital twins
Today, the two warehouses are transformed into Buildings 2 and 3 of the "World Living Room", and the bright clear water wall is very eye-catching. It is hard to imagine that the vast majority of wall tiles are already 100 years old. How is this done?
This gorgeous transformation relies on high-tech means.
Due to the long-term erosion of the river wind, typhoon and other climatic erosion, the outer walls of the two old warehouses have been seriously weathered, and some of the wall tiles have been shortened, and the transformation and renewal are facing great challenges. At that time, the construction team tailored three sets of repair plans and invited authoritative experts in the industry to conduct selection and demonstration.
The first is to preserve the whole, and the second is to cut the façade into several parts, repair them one by one, and then put together a complete wall. The third is the use of landing frame overhaul, this process is to remove the building structure in whole or partially, and then install the dismantled parts after repairing and then installing them as they are.
Because the wall tiles have been damaged and the strength is insufficient, it is not only difficult to support the demand for transformation, but also has great safety risks. After repeated comparisons and expert demonstrations, the construction team adopted a third scheme with a more mature process, but it required higher accuracy of restoration.
In order to accurately restore, the construction team adopted the leading digital twin style improvement technology to "clone" the architectural style into the computer, establish a dynamic simulation model, and guide the whole life cycle of repair and operation and maintenance.
How accurate is it? The person in charge of the project of the construction party Shanghai Construction Engineering Group told reporters that the technical staff used digital mapping technology such as three-dimensional laser scanning to record all the brick colors, roof flowers, stigma flowers, arch coupons, and cornice lines of the building. The thickness of the walls, the way of masonry, the arrangement and distribution, and the gray seam method are also entered into the computer database.
According to the recorded building data, the technicians combined with historical drawings and photos, using reverse geometry reconstruction, BIM model conversion and other technologies, can restore a vivid and accurate old architectural model in the computer. The model can also display the 32 processes of wall restoration, and realize the 3D visualization of the repair process of characteristic components.
Using high-tech means, the construction team can restore the old building with vivid and accurate details in the computer, which is used to guide the repair
In addition to modeling, the third repair scheme draws on the experience of the second. There are some well-preserved features on the outer walls of the warehouse, and the construction personnel use the cutting method to protect the whole as a reference for later research and re-masonry.
The old components that were removed were also properly restored. It is reported that the two warehouses have demolished a total of more than 700,000 old bricks, some of which have been shortened and cannot be replaced by new bricks, and 460,000 bricks were originally dismantled and re-installed on the wall after a series of complex processes such as salt removal, alkali removal, reinforcement, and polishing. In addition, there are 57 steel columns, 69 pieces of pickpockets, 21 vials reserved and reused, and the overall utilization rate of historical elements has reached 80%, extending the historical sense and place information of the old architectural cultural heritage of the North Bund.
Comparison before and after the renovation of the façade
Historical components play a "new role"
The repair of old buildings should not only conform to the principle of "repairing the old as old", but also organically integrate modern functions and traditional forms, so that the buildings have both historical features and can adapt to modern visiting needs.
In the renovation, the two warehouses were replaced with a stronger "skeleton". The construction team replaced the mixed structure of brick walls, steel columns and wooden beams of the original building with steel structures to improve the fire rating and fire resistance limit time of the historic building to meet the new use needs.
The 57 black steel columns used to support the interior of the two old warehouses now have a "new role" and have become a characteristic architectural element of some of the interior spaces. After the reinstallation, these black steel columns were turned into decorations for the exhibition space to continue the dock culture of the Huangpu River.
In addition to Warehouses No. 2 and No. 3, the North Bund penetration and comprehensive renovation and upgrading projects have also brought the surrounding old buildings to life. Located between the Seagull Hotel and the "World Parlor", the Red House, a century-old historic building, has been partially inclined, settled and cracked many years ago. The construction team introduced the most advanced jacking technology in China, raised the overall height of the Red Building by more than 6 meters, and strengthened the building foundation, improving the stability of the old building.
Nowadays, strolling through the North Bund, visitors are no longer just looking at the skyscrapers on the other side of The Lujiazui, or feeling the Haipai scenery of the Bund International Architectural Complex, with the "World Living Room" as the core, the North Bund Yangtze River Pier is presenting a unique style of historical buildings and the new and old of the city skyline, continuing the culture and memory of the city.