Yu Ting's new work | Ripples: The art of architectural land in Kuwata on the clouds

Unable to leave Shanghai, I looked at the photos of the scene sent by Wu Gang over and over again, and suddenly I noticed the ripples formed by the spray water in the pond, with white lace. At that moment, I was fascinated. I want to make a ripple on the soft soil on the edge of the pond.

Thanks to Wutopia Lab for sharing gooood

"For a moment, nothing else matters."

- Lucy Caldwell

▲Video

Wutopia Lab's Nanhai District Freshwater Fish Industry Technology Demonstration and Promotion Center was completed and opened in April 2023, the origin of the Sanji fish pond production method – the "ripples" under the Xiqiao Mountain created on Sangyuan Wai.

▲Aerial view © of the venue as a whole Wu Siming

The first ripple

"Ripple" is Hall 4 in the Yueyun Comprehensive Exhibition Complex of Xiqiao Town, and it is also the first building to be completed. It is an extension of the concept of "Once in the sea, mulberry field on the cloud" in Hall 1. But I don't want to repeat the cloud theme I'm used to. Unable to leave Shanghai, I looked at the photos of the scene sent by Wu Gang over and over again, and suddenly I noticed the ripples formed by the spray water in the pond, with white lace. At that moment, I was fascinated. I want to make a ripple on the soft soil on the edge of the pond.

▲ Ripples can be seen © in the distant pond on the left hand Wu Siming

▲Site axonometric Wutopia © Lab

▲Aerial © view of top view Wu Siming

The cost is tight. I designed the roof of Hall 4 to be rippled, and the exhibition hall is still a square combination of rules that facilitate the arrangement of exhibitions. The conflict between curves and straight lines requires highlighting the roof and weakening the façade of the exhibition hall. Ripples should be the elements that control the façade, including the fifth façade. At the same time, I prefer that she is a floating ripple.

▲Aerial view © of Wu Siming from the southeast side

▲Southwest façade © Wu Siming

▲Curved roof © Wu Siming

I didn't want to mimic the extreme finesse and lightness of SANNA, nor did I want to express structure. "Metallic clouds shade the sky, and their emotions contain enormous weight." In June 2022, I felt that I wanted to make the ripples look thick and heavy, so that the suspension became tense. I designed the roof to be up to 3.5 meters thick and the façade to be 2.4 meters high. This visually allows the roof to press down on the façade and become a controlling expression. The roof looks layered on the façade and has different heights. As a ripple, the glass skylight in the center concentrically separates the contour line, a total of 5 circles, the center height is 3.5 meters, and the maximum thickness of the center is reduced to the cornice is 1.9 meters thick. Therefore, when you look at the roof from the air, you can think of terraces and even clouds from the ripples, thus lighting up the theme of mulberry fields on the clouds in the unbuilt Hall 1.

▲South façade © Wu Siming

▲East façade © Wu Siming

▲North façade © Wu Siming

▲East façade © Wu Siming

▲West façade © Wu Siming

Ripples look thicker, not as thick. I rejected the original tapered concrete roof design that was bulky and expensive to construct. I fixed the roof panels at a 4-meter elevation, and all the waterproofing, drainage and insulation were solved on this level. There is only structure and circuit between the roof panel and the indoor ceiling, ensuring that the level of the exhibition hall is unified to meet the needs of the exhibition at 3.2 meters. Ripples are the shape on this board. The surface of the ripple is laid with a 50×50×50H×3 fluorocarbon sprayed steel grille to form a white translucent skin. Compared to the thickness of the façade, I tried to create a light experience on the roof from a bird's eye view. Each layer of ripples is edged with a white aluminum plate. When the cornice is reached, it is spliced with GRC, smoothed out with anti-cracking mortar, and then plastered with cement paint imitation concrete to achieve a seamless effect and highlight the purity of the ripples.

▲Axonometric analysis diagram © Wutopia Lab

▲Aerial view © of Wu Siming from the north side

▲Exhibition hall © Wu Siming

▲Northeast façade © Wu Siming

▲Northwest façade © Wu Siming

▲Southwest façade © Wu Siming

▲North façade © Wu Siming

▲Steel grille roof © Wu Siming

The first ripple is a thick but actually suspended ripple that can be, but when you really stand on it, it's a little nervous because it becomes a very light ripple. This is an old trick of architecture, which was called Baroque.

▲ Suspended "ripple" © Wu Siming

▲ Film and television city and land art festival installation © in the distance Wu Siming

Make a mountain out of a molehill

The owner required fast and simple construction and low cost. Structural engineers use the mature foundation form commonly used in the soft soil area of the Pearl River Delta - prestressed pipe pile to solve the problem of soft soil on the site, so as to avoid excessive foundation settlement caused by insufficient bearing capacity of the ground surface of the site, resulting in the sinking and roll of the upper steel structure. The architect wanted the ripples that stood out at 7.8m to look thick and light. The engineers designed the floor of the exhibition hall as a 250m thick reinforced concrete raft with double bidirectional pull-through and poured in pieces of steel bars, and strengthened the structural integrity of the main steel structure frame through buried column bases. So that the ripples can be gracefully held in the air.

▲Aerial view © of Wu Siming from the south side

▲Aerial view © of Wu Siming from the west side

For the ripples to be pure, hide the rainwater pipe in a steel column. The ripple should be pure, and the 0.7mm thick aluminum plate is used to make a flash adapter at the cornice, and the roof structure is connected to form a flash network, which is neither lightning protection nor unsightly lightning protection belt. The ripples should be pure, and the bottom version of the roof is the ceiling, so that the ground air is supplied, the local pipe trench is reserved under the bottom plate, and the air outlet is reserved when the ground raft is poured to ensure the integrity of the ceiling. The air vents for heat dissipation pass through the roof from the machine room. It disappears through the obscuration of the grille. The ripples should be pure, and the façade should be pure, so the skylight should be used as a natural smoke extraction window, so that the glass of the façade can be continuously unfolded.

▲Northwest façade © Wu Siming

▲Curved roof © Wu Siming

The 666 m² exhibition hall is thus overspoken, creating ripples suspended under Xiqiao Mountain.

Be easy

When my college classmate Wu Gang came to see me, Shanghai had just lifted its static management. Some of them are not comfortable with my words, and I don't want to worry about giving new words. My decision was quick and simple. None of the popular discourses in architecture mattered. I use architecture as a means to create a land art. White, translucent, symbolic, metaphorical, dual, baroque, and finally combined into a dramatic image with some of my emotions in it, that's enough. "All the hard training and thinking has to show incredible ease in the end."

"You can't imagine how beautiful that place is, the way the sun falls on the ground is different."

- Colin Barrett

Project drawings

Design company: Wutopia Lab

Lead Architect: Yu TingProject Architect: Yellow River Design Team: Xie Jialin, Lin Jianming (Intern) Owner Unit: Foshan Nanhai District Xiqiao Town Yue Geng Yueyun Cultural Tourism Development Co., Ltd. Planning Unit: Foshan Nanhai District Xiqiaoshan Academy Construction Drawing Design: Guangdong Zhuozhi Design Engineering Co., Ltd. Construction Unit: Guangdong Xingui Construction Engineering Co., Ltd. Structural Consultant: Miao Binhai Location: Foshan Nanhai District Yue Geng Yueyun Cultural Tourism Park Total construction area: 666 m² Roof projection area: 1263 m² Design time: June 2022 - September 2022 Completion time: April 2023 Photography: Wu Siming Video: Wu Siming