Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo

Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
blooming roof garden. Image © Wenyi Liu

CENTURY PAVILION FOR 10TH CHINA FLOWER EXPO

ECADI

ARCHITECTS
Ecadi

AREA
12348 m²

LOCATION
Shanghai, China

INTERIOR DESIGN
Ming Yang, Liyuan Zhu, Xinyi Gao, Chen Su, Yitong Sun, Jiang Wei, Qibo Hong, Nansheng Jiang

CATEGORY
Museums & Exhibit

CLIENT
Bright Eco-island Investment and Development Co. Ltd

MEP
Yuxiang Sheng, Chunhui Cai

LIGHTING
Hailing Liao, Chunhui Yang, Zhixing Wang, Erxue Ding, Jie Xu, Tianjie Wu 

YEAR
2021

CONSULTANT
Shanghai Research Institute of Building Sciences Co.Ltd.

DESIGN TEAM
Ming Yang, Liyuan Zhu, Xinyi Gao, Ruiqi Lv, Kaixiang Chen

HVAC
Zhigang Yang, Haobo Yuan

BIM
SIADR BIM&VDC CENTRE

STRUCTURE DESIGN
Yongqiang Huang, Zesheng Yan, Luo Zhang, Chengdong Yang, Yao Luo

ELECTRICAL
Xiaobo Huang, Guoling Wei, Yashuai Duo, Jiahao Chen, Sen Sun, Jie Yu

PHOTOGRAPHS
Wenyi Liu

LANDSCAPE
ARCPLUS SXADL

EXHIBITION DESIGN
Motion Magic SMG, Shanghai Chenshan Botanic Garden

CHIEF ARCHITECTS
Ming Yang, Liyuan Zhu

PLUMBING
Fenghua Zhang, Qiong Wang

The 10th China Flower Expo is held in Chongming, Shanghai on May 21st, 2021, Century Pavilion, which is one of the main venues, is themed at “Butterfly and Flower”.

Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
construction in April 2021. Image © Wenyi Liu
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
aerial view. Image © Wenyi Liu

As an earth-sheltered landscape architecture spanning over 280 meters, Century Pavilion created the biggest free boundary continuous arch concrete shell all over the nation, and also realized the idea of the ecological expo with the fully utilizing climatic resources,to celebrate this flourishing and harmonious age.

ECOLOGICAL AND SUSTAINABLE RARE BOTANIC GARDEN

Positioned in a rare botanic exhibition hall, the 12348㎡Century pavilion consists of two parts: multi-media showroom in eastern wing and plants showroom in the western wing, with a silk bridge hanging across the main axis connecting them.

Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
flying posture. Image © Wenyi Liu
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
aerial view. Image © Wenyi Liu

To avoid dramatic energy consumption, the mild climate of transition season is fully utilized in an open façade system to increase cross ventilation and natural lighting, and this passive energy-saving strategy decreased equipment system load.

In addition, showrooms are built into replaceable units which are detached from the main structure, ensuring maximum compatibility in future renovation.

Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
eastern wing. Image © Wenyi Liu
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
roof garden. Image © Wenyi Liu

Century Pavilion has fulfilled the requirements of the WELL BUILDING STANDARD at the GOLD level, and three-star green building certification design label.

BUTTERFLY AND FLOWER

Implicating transmutation, the form of Century Pavilion is abstracted from Luehdorfia chinensis, which is a Chinese national treasure.

Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
roof garden. Image © Wenyi Liu
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
western wing. Image © Wenyi Liu

The concise curvature benefits the rationality of form as well as space, presenting the posture of flying.

STRUCTURE ORIENTATED DESIGN

A concrete shell is introduced to minimize structural depth and developed into a pioneering "Prestressed Balanced Concrete Thin Shell with Free Boundary" system.

Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
© Wenyi Liu
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
eastern wing. Image © Wenyi Liu

The shell spanning over 280 meters is supported by forestry leaning columns and developed from a single arch into a continuous arch to adapt to Butterfly's free form boundary, thus minimizes the thickness of the concrete shell to 250mm.

This arch height, reaching 1.6meter, is buried in the soil of an earth-sheltered roof ensuring a pure and intact space beneath the shell.

Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
curvature space. Image © Wenyi Liu
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
western wing. Image © Wenyi Liu

The 3 levels 1080°spiral stair supported by single column weights 80tons, its 10 meters cantilever challenges the limit of structure.

PURIFYING SPACE

To ensure the purity of curvature spaces, pipelines are concealed in an underground mezzanine which develops from structure foundation counteracting arch thrust.

Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
courtyard details. Image © Wenyi Liu
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
spiral stair. Image © Wenyi Liu
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
spiral stair. Image © Wenyi Liu

The sunlight directed to the dark interior via light guides enhances the atmosphere of the cave-like space, and the contrast between.

The pure curvature space is resulted from the cooperation of all professions, making the butterfly special and unique.

CONSTRUCTION

To realize a low-cost as-cast-finish concrete, prefabricated forms are replaced by a tip positioning system.

Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
silk bridge. Image © Wenyi Liu
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
VIP reception. Image © Wenyi Liu

More than 30 thousand pipes are erected in a 800mm*800mm grid to locate the coordinates of the shell's lower surface.

To stabilize plants on the sloped roof, the planting layer is divided into 2m*2m blocks to plant flowers separately, and is thus convenient for replacing.

Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
VIP meeting room. Image © Wenyi Liu
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
silk bridge. Image © Wenyi Liu

“Butterfly” is not only a prominent characteristic in appearance, but also a critical factor in solving contradictions.

The earth-sheltered landscape shell deriving from the very nature of architecture is finally realized as a blooming roof garden, and the design practice turned into a restriction-breaking “metamorphose” process.


Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
open north facade. Image © Wenyi Liu
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
blooming roof garden. Image © Wenyi Liu
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
© Wenyi Liu
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
© Wenyi Liu


Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
Underground Mezzanine for Pipelines
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
Generation of Continuous Arch Shell


Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
elevations
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
building conponents


Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
Section
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
Section


Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
roof structure details
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
wall details


Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
Plan
Century Pavilion for 10th China Flower Expo
Site Plan