FLOATING OVER NATURE
The proposed building for the Weihai Shandong Art Museum in China, manifests its integration feature with nature by touching the soil slightly and floating over the preserved vegetation. With only five support points, the building basis stands on the highest terrain part, where is the visitor’s access, and extends over the stream in a shape of a glassed volume that connects the exhibition spaces with the surrounding landscape. With privileged views, beyond the 2 stories that explore transparency as a connection tool, the roof is an additional component of contact with the surrounding nature, providing surprising views to the hills of the Rushan city and allowing an external sensorial experience with the air, wind, sun, rain.
OPEN EXHIBITIONS
The visitor’s journey starts with the access by the roof into the 2nd floor on the stairs of exposed concrete. Passing in the reception, he is directed into the 1st floor, setting up the exhibition trajectory from bottom-up, ending on the roof. The 1st floor has five glass floors, which opens up the visual contact to the site with the stream source and its native vegetation. The exhibition is completely flexible, with open spaces connected between them, at the same time they connect to the surrounding landscape by glass transparency. This transparency is also controlled by the wooden solar protections, that fits in the façade’s modularity and structure.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
Weihai Shandong Art Museum positions itself as a manifesto of environmental sustainability. The main gesture by touching the soil slightly, preserving the native vegetation and the stream source, extends to the criterious choice of the structure and materials. Steel and concrete are indispensable to the lush structural performance, and are elements of economics, as they fit into the modular coordination and constructive rationality. The simplicity and legibility of the structure and façade placed as a non-conventional element is what provides the extraordinary from the ordinary. The wood is highlighted as a natural material totally recyclable e returnable to the environment through reforesting and sustainable planting management. Wood gets shape on the solar shades, ceiling, on the roof deck and on the modular structure over the roof. The hexagonal columns also supports the photovoltaic panels that transforms the solar energy into electric power.
ACCESSIBILITY, SAFETY, OFFICE AND LIVING BUILDING
All the stories have access for people with special needs by the elevators, and the exit routes safety is formed by compartments and fire stairs that leads into the exits on the roof level. The exhibition spaces have the support from the resting areas, cafe, storages, technical areas. The support building for the museum staff, composed by an office and living building, was created in a circular shape linked into the museum as outer straps, making at the same time a separation and an integration with building body.
INFRASTRUCTURE
The Art Museum was thought not like an isolated object, but as a component of urban infrastructure, apt to receive tourists in the Chinese hills.
– Vehicles: a wide access with parking for cars and tourism buses was positioned on the level of the ancient hiking track. The visitors can park comfortably and walk until the entrance at the roof level.
– Topography: the site was preserved at maximum, being impacted only by the foundations of the five support points of the building and by the volume embedded in the hillside, with a moderated volume of excavated soil and retaining walls.
– Views: the views end up becoming an element of urban infrastructure, once the roof integrates to the landscape with its organic morphology and vegetation, expanding as a platform over the valley.
Built area:
1st floor= 3,419 m²
2nd floor= 2,879 m²
(Office and living building= 240 m²)
Total= 6,298 m²
STRUCTURE
The five supporting points are composed of reinforced concrete columns that makes the transition to four slanted metallic columns on tree shape, from where starts the two-story volume, composed by diagonal that form the diamond shape with main axis of 15 meters. The height of each story is 7.5 meters, making the 15 meters total height. The composition allows the creation of an interlocking set, which gives high structural stability to the set and stablish the parameter of modular coordination as an element of rationality and economy. The modularity extends onto the curtain wall of the façade, composed by diamond shapes and solar shade protections.
SUSTAINABILITY
The project was carefully thought out based on solar and ventilation studies. Considering the geographic coordinates of the city of Rushan, the north facade is the one that needs the most sun protection, as it is exposed to the sun in summer and greater exposure to the sun in the afternoon. The south facade benefits from heat gains in winter and is more exposed to the morning sun, therefore incorporating fewer solar protection elements. In addition to these elements that guarantee the building’s energy efficiency, sustainable strategies include the use of photovoltaic panels, high-performance glass on the facades, rainwater collection and reuse, and an air conditioning system powered by solar energy from panels on the roof.
Sustainable strategies
1. Photovoltaic panels on the roof. They transform solar energy into electrical energy, contributing to the building’s energy efficiency and preserving the environment from inefficient and polluting uses.
2. Collection of rainwater for reuse in toilets and garden irrigation.
3. Lower reservoir for rainwater treatment.
4. Inclined and horizontal sunshades protect exhibition spaces from direct sunlight.
5. High performance low-e glass. It allows the entry of natural light and blocks much of the solar radiation, maintaining thermal comfort in internal spaces.
6. Air conditioning powered by photovoltaic energy systems. The use of clean energy reduces the impacts of using artificial air conditioning.
EXHIBITIONS
The exhibition spaces are flexible and can incorporate several themes of the Chinese culture, such as calligraphy, painting, ceramics, food. Highlights to the space destined to the Great Wall, with a wooden cone and luminous ceiling that display the magnificent history of this Chinese monument. At the edge of the exhibition space, with double ceiling height, a great suspended dragon represents one of the most remarkable Chinese culture.