Unexpected Spatial Experiences

Hua Museum by URBANUS Architecture is located in Shenzhen, China. The architects explain: “The site has had a rather unremarkable history. Originally made for a laundry facility for Shenzhen Bay Hotel in the early 80’s, it is situated along the main road, between a Spanish-style OCT Hotel and the Hexiangning Gallery. Over many years, the warehouse itself remained unaltered while the city around it rapidly transformed.▪

Considering the significance of its location, the owner decides to remodel the warehouse in a meaningful way. For Urbanus, the remodelling of the site poses difficult questions of how to address the existing urban condition, and how new interventions would relate to it. The main architectural gesture is to wrap the entire warehouse with a hexagonal glass curtain wall. The pattern is created from 4 different sizes of hexagons. As a result, the new wall becomes a lively theatrical screen. The geometric pattern is more than just surface deep. It is actually a three-dimensional matrix of intersecting elements that project into the gallery spaces, structuring the building’s interior design. The result is the creation of delightful and unexpected spatial experiences.”

Project: Hua Museum

Location: Shenzhen, China

Client: Shenzhen OCT Real Estate Co., Ltd

Architects: URBANUS Architecture & Design. Inc.

Project: 2006-2008

Construction: 2008
Size: 2,620 sq m

Images: URBANUS Architecture

Berlin-Paris Gallery Swap

If you're feeling shorter of pocket than usual this month, but still fancy a cultural jaunt to raise the spirits, head to either Berlin or Paris, where due to a large-scale gallery swap you get the chance to get a two-for-one experience of both cities' finest contemporary artists

The Berlin-Paris program is a traditional swap shop affair: 12 Parisian galleries have been twinned with a Berlin counterpart and are showing their work in the German capital until 18th January. Led by the French embassy in Germany, the exchange has a cultural precedent in the Centre Pompidou’s 1978 exhibition, ‘Paris-Berlin’, which explored the art scenes of France and Germany in the first half of the 20th Century. Aside from giving us an opportunity to take in a double whammy of contemporary art, the scheme’s idea is to provide the galleries with expanded viewing and networking potentials in anticipation of a more restricted climate in the coming years.

- From www.wallpaper.com