Urbanus GmbH

Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue

Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Baode square B4-4. Image © Qingshan Wu

URBAN DESIGN AND RESEARCH OF NANTOU OLD TOWN + ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN OF UABB VENUE

URBANUS

ARCHITECTS
URBANUS

CLIENT
Nanshan District Government

URBAN DESIGN STAGE LEAD ARCHITECT
Yan Meng

PHOTOGRAPHS
Qingshan Wu, Chao Zhang, Yan Meng, UABB

CONSTRUCTION AGENCY
Shum Yip Land Investment & Development Co.LTD

BUILDING RENOVATION STAGE LEAD ARCHITECTS
Meng Yan

SITE AREA
38,150 ㎡

BUILDING RENOVATION STAGE PROJECT GENERAL MANAGER
Lin Yilin

BUILDING RENOVATION STAGE PROJECT ARCHITECT
Enchen Rao, Milutin Cerovic

FAÇADE RENOVATION AREA
25,700 ㎡

LANDSCAPE AREA
24,469㎡

BUILDING RENOVATION STAGE PROJECT MANAGER
Min Zang

BUILDING RENOVATION STAGE DESIGN TEAM
Donghe You, Qingzhou Jiang, Kan Liu, Zhi Zheng, Hui Chen, Congyi Li, Mengjun Liao, Chen Shen, Chaoxian Zhang, Yanfeng Wang, Yuxin Peng, Fuping Dai, Haozhou Yang, Shihao Xiao, Yongqi Weng, Jun Cao

URBAN DESIGN STAGE PROJECT MANAGER
Yilin Lin

FLOOR AREA
12,485 ㎡

BUILDING RENOVATION STAGE LANDSCAPE TEAM
Zhijiao Wei | Guanda Li, Xiao Xu, Qi Cai, Yunong Liu, Ke Han

COLLABORATORS
Tsinghua-Yuan Ltd., Shenzhen Republic Design & Engineering Co.Ltd

URBAN DESIGN STAGE DESIGN TEAM
Congyi Li, Kan Liu, Xuejuan Zhang, Wendy Wu | Yanfeng Wang | (Internship) Lin Tian, Na Zheng, Yifan Wang, Siying Han

URBAN DESIGN STAGE PROJECT MANAGER
Yilin Lin

CATEGORY
Renovation, Buildings

LOCATION
Shenzhen, China

YEAR
2016

Text description provided by the architects.

The Nantou Old Town in the city center of Shenzhen, China was founded as a city over 1,700 years ago starting from the Jin Dynasty. In the past century, the ancient town has gradually vanished, while the village was constantly expanding.

Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Current Situation. Image Courtesy of URBANUS
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Current Situation. Image Courtesy of URBANUS

The exacerbation of urbanization in Shenzhen has resulted in an intertwined layering with complex pattern of the historical town embedded in the urban village, which is again encircled by the city—“village in city, city in village”.

At the beginning of 2016, the design and research team of Urbanus started to be involved in the Nantou Preservation and Regeneration Project and concluded that only by respecting the authenticity of the history and cherishing the cultural layers and historical traces of each period of time can we shape a timelessly dynamic urban community rooted in local history and culture.

Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Factory Zone Vego Plaza Before renovation. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Factory Zone Vego Plaza. Image © Chao Zhang

We see today’s Nantou not as an old historic town in the traditional sense, but as a historical heritage town, which carries on the history and culture of nearly two thousand years, and which preserves the spatial, social and cultural heritage of Shenzhen across every historical period.

It is the only precious sample of Shenzhen’s urban culture that displays both the Millennium culture heritage a long side all optical spectral juxtaposition of China’s rapid urbanization over the last three decades.

Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Baode Square B4 Surrounding Street. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Current Situation. Image Courtesy of URBANUS

Based on the preliminary study on Nantou, Urbanus proposed a development model of promoting the rejuvenation of the ancient city with the guidance of the intervention, promoting the revival of the ancient city with cultural activities with the gradual activation from point to surface.

Later on, after sufficient field investigation, urban design and research work in the early stage, we came up with the idea to propose Nantou as the main venue of 2017 UABB in the biennale venue selection process.

The Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (Shenzhen) (shorted as UABB) is themed with Cities, Grow in Difference. Further field surveys and research into Nantou’s historical documents helped us to find a narrative line on which spatial renovation and the exhibition implementation could highly coincide.

Following the urban design strategy of preservation and regeneration while locating exhibition spaces for UABB, we sought to reconstruct a public open space system which is very rare in Nantou. Serving as an exhibition route, this system consists of both architectural spaces and outdoor venues in the spot distribution.

Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
old town gate. Image Courtesy of URBANUS

The exhibition venues are in five zones from north to south and extending out toward east and west: A. Factory Zone, B. Cross Road Zone, C. Southern Gate Zone, D. Historic Buildings Zone, and E. Chunjing Street Zone.

The whole exhibition spatial narrative is formed with “Introduction, Elucidation, Transition, Conclusion, Agglomeration, Openness and Seclusion” seven interlocking themes, like the opening, developing, changing and concluding with rising and falling climax structure of Chinese literature or drama.

Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Baode square B4 Interior. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Dajiale Stage. Image © Chao Zhang

The urban intervention of this UABB is highly consistent with the old town regeneration plan, making a smooth transition from one to the other.

During the renovation of the main venue, the design team selected a great variety of spaces and tailored to, including factory buildingsin village embedded in city, streets, squares, residential buildings, historical buildings, and parks.

Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Factory Zone. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Factory Zone. Image © Chao Zhang

We hope through renovation for exhibition spaces and architecture, art with organized events interventions, to bring an alternative experimental opportunity for the regeneration of Nantou Old Town and the renovation of villages in urban in general.

Intervening the current urban renewal process in the way of “urban organized exhibition”, is a long-term strategy for the incremental improvement of urban spaces and the quality of urban life.

Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Factory Zone After Renovation. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Baode Square B3 Surrounding Street. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Dajiale Stage. Image © Chao Zhang


Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Aerial View of Baode Square Before Renovation. Image Courtesy of URBANUS
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Baode square. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
old town gate. Image Courtesy of URBANUS


Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Cross Road Square Surrounding Street. Image Courtesy of URBANUS
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
UABB Birdview. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Factory Zone. Image © Yan Meng
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Baode Square B4 Surrounding Street. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Dajiale Stage Before Renovation. Image Courtesy of URBANUS
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Baode square. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Before Renovation. Image Courtesy of URBANUS
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Baode square. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Baode Square B4 Surrounding Street. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Factory Zone Vego Plaza. Image © Qingshan Wu
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Baode square. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Cross Road Square Surrounding Street. Image Courtesy of URBANUS
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Aerial View of Baode Square Before Renovation. Image Courtesy of URBANUS


Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Current Situation. Image © UABB
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Baode Square B3-3 Surrounding Street. Image © Chao Zhang
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Aerial view of Nantou Old Town. Image © Chao Zhang


Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Elevation of Baode Square
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Section of Cross Street Zone


Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Ground Floor Plan of Cross Street Zone
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Ground Floor Plan of Baode Square


Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Axon of the main Venue. Image Courtesy of URBANUS
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Axon of the Barbican. Image Courtesy of URBANUS
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Axon of Baode Square. Image Courtesy of URBANUS
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Axon of Dajiale Stage. Image Courtesy of URBANUS


Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Nantou Concept Axon
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Nantou Concept Axon
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
UABB Venue Renovation
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Axon of Main Venue
Urban Design and Research of Nantou Old Town + Architectural Design of UABB Venue
Axon Anotated

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