O·POWER Custom & Arts Centre / Shenzhen Huahui Design
Textual content material description provided by the architects. The Huazhong Power Plant is located inside the northern part of the Overseas Chinese language language Metropolis house in Nanshan District, Shenzhen. In 1989, in the midst of the speedy monetary progress of the Shenzhen Specific Monetary Zone, the power present inside the Overseas Chinese language language Metropolis house confronted a shortage, leading to a situation of power present for 3 days and a blackout for 4 days. To alleviate this instance, the Huazhong Power Plant provided electrical power to the entire Overseas Chinese language language Metropolis house by heavy oil power know-how. In 2006, it was formally retired because of metropolis progress and environmental security requirements. As an industrial relic and a testament to the speedy progress of Shenzhen’s historic previous, the Huazhong Power Plant holds the reminiscences of many aged residents of the Overseas Chinese language language Metropolis and embodies the collective spirit of the interval. The tactic of the Huazhong Power Plant renovation problem differs from earlier renovation initiatives. Initially of the problem, the theme and color scheme of the park’s panorama had already been determined. Subsequently, all by means of the entire redesign course of, the principle focus was on strategies to excavate and recreate the spirit of the place on the current foundation, strategies to stability the constraints of the positioning’s environment with the smart sensible requirements, and strategies to coordinate and mix with the panorama elements.


The problem is located between the interface of city, nature, and the group, serving as an very important northern gateway and a connecting bridge all through the whole Overseas Chinese language language Metropolis house. Based mostly totally on the historic and future progress value of this problem, the design defines it as a future cultural chief inside the paintings group of the Overseas Chinese language language Metropolis house. It targets to create an metropolis entrance room and a creative humanistic hub that integrates custom, paintings, and group, allowing the earlier vitality coronary heart to return to city and develop to be a provide of group spirit. From an outdated power plant to a gaggle home, it targets to assemble constructive group public areas for the encircling residents and activate the creative and cultural ecosystem of town house.



Retention and Intervention – Starting from the positioning elements, the entire plot is break up proper right into a dynamic and static zone alongside the north-south axis. The southern zone is a leisure interactive house focused on exterior sports activities actions, child-friendly companies, and leisure experiences. The northern zone is a performing arts and cultural creative house centered on multifunctional theaters, dwell exhibits, and group cultural actions. The distinctive power plant possesses 5 distinctive industrial relics, nevertheless due to the rigid boundaries and chaotic format of each establishing, it fails to kind a complete spatial narrative. The design takes public home creation and architectural openness because the place to start, based mostly totally on the distinctive spatial format and amount of the establishing sophisticated. By softening the architectural boundaries, releasing the underside home, and incorporating clear glass spherical areas, exterior staircases, and gray areas, it creates a vibrant “micro-urban building” all through the park. The O•POWER Custom and Art work Coronary heart (#1) was initially a generator plant. The underside floor has been reworked by incorporating a full glass spherical house to create a model new shared home. It gracefully accommodates the encircling bushes, making a gaggle surroundings alongside the highway and enhancing the blending of indoor and out of doors areas, along with providing transparency for sightlines. As a consequence of insufficient pure delicate contained in the distinctive plant, the design opens up the steady wall on the southern facade, altering it with clear glass and metallic grilles. This allows further pure delicate to enter the within and serves as a present window showcasing the spirit of the place. The renovated establishing maintains an identical quantity and proportion to the distinctive building whereas preserving the primary concrete building of the outdated power plant to the utmost extent. This renovation problem is a tribute to the memory of the outdated power plant whereas extending its legacy.



The western second-floor rooftop platform of the O•POWER Custom and Art work Coronary heart (#1) was initially an abandoned platform. As a consequence of years of neglect, the design entails repairing and reshaping the rooftop platform and incorporating a stainless-steel cowl throughout the present chimney kind to create a singular industrial experiential home. The preserved traces of enterprise heritage and the newly constructed elements kind a gentle and pure entity, connecting the earlier, present, and approach ahead for the power plant. This allows the outdated and new constructions to iteratively merge all through the equivalent order.



Isomorphism and Symbiosis – Impressed by the oil tank varieties found inside the southern house of the power plant, a cylindrical building (O home) has been built-in into the precept establishing as a model new spiritual and core guiding home, taking part in a “dialogue” with the surface oil tanks. The facade of the cylinder is comprised of UHPC (Extraordinarily-Extreme-Effectivity Concrete), lowering the thickness of the cylinder partitions and mitigating the have an effect on of additional constructions on the within home. The insertion of the cylindrical building divides the distinctive high-ceiling home of the plant into the multifunctional O home and the POWER Theater, capable of web internet hosting immersive performances, paintings exhibitions, and quite a few completely different capabilities ultimately. This creates a cutting-edge theater cluster centered on the blending of effectivity and exhibition.

To satisfy the requirements of absolute purity and bodily properties for the exhibition home, the partitions on both facet of the foyer are lined with sound-absorbing supplies – foam aluminum. Via using this new supplies with a “delicate” attachment approach on the outdated partitions, it minimizes harm to the distinctive building and the outdated partitions whereas enhancing the multifunctionality of the cylindrical foyer home. The presence of the distinctive manufacturing facility crane beams and uncovered principal structural elements creates an intriguing juxtaposition of outdated and new, providing a vivid illustration of the power plant’s memory all through the overall home. The POWER Theater attracts inspiration from the core bodily attribute of “electrical power” inside the outdated power plant, representing the transition from the earlier’s “bodily power” to the present’s “creative power” centered on performing arts content material materials. The theater is a closed-box home that breaks away from typical proscenium stage design, allowing any house all through the theater to develop to be a effectivity stage. It’s equipped with versatile seating preparations which will accommodate roughly 200 seats or spherical 400 standing viewers members. Serving as a result of the core engine of free and trendy experimental theater, it collaborates with the O home and out of doors areas to radiate to the encircling group and even town house.


As a transitional home between town interface and the park, the Cultural and Creative Backstreet (#4) undergoes a metamorphosis from a single, slender spatial kind. There’s a 3-meter high distinction between the distinctive establishing and Qiaoxiang Freeway on the north side. To forestall children from climbing, the design incorporates a steady wall on the sidewalk side, forming an under-eave gray home along with the newly added stainless-steel constructions. Furthermore, seven small-scale water-washed stones and cast-in-place concrete packing containers are launched, rising the depth of the distinctive establishing whereas creating various interpretations of gray home by twisting and shifting between paired packing containers. The preservation of bushes on the north side and the Cultural and Creative Backstreet collectively kind an pure enclosure, enveloping the park and creating an open and built-in spatial relationship between the backstreet group and city. The zigzag ramp connects the sidewalk on Qiaoxiang Freeway to the Cultural and Art work Coronary heart (#1), providing visitors to the POWER Theater with a further helpful entry route. The meandering type of the ramp moreover creates a approach of place for visitors to wander by the woods and luxuriate in a singular perspective of the park’s environment from an elevated vantage degree.



Continuation and Evolution – Buildings #2, #3, and #5 had been initially the power plant’s oil pump residence, fire pump residence, and spherical water reservoir, respectively. After being renovated and reworked, they now kind an enclosure with the “Water Tower” (beforehand the cooling tower) to create the Cool Playground. The renovated Theater Bar (#2) choices uncovered necessary beam-column constructions and crane gear, showcasing the facility and weathered attract of the distinctive industrial heritage. The structural elements define the notion of the distinctive home whereas allowing for a modest retreat to create an outside gray home that pulls people into the “Cool Playground.” The facade incorporates “gap” and “modern” water ripple glass bricks, along with outdated establishing provides harking back to water-washed stones, showcasing a symbiotic relationship between preservation and intervention, the place they help and accommodate each other.


The Brick Workshop (#5) is located on the core of the Northern Area Cool Playground and was initially a spherical brick water reservoir. By together with a curved entrance wall and an exterior spherical staircase comprised of rusted metallic plates, the underside floor, exterior house, and roof have been reconfigured into an pure regular home, making a singular sense of place experience. The skin facade makes use of porous purple ceramic bricks to revive the distinctive architectural kind, tracing once more to the “new” and awakening the spirit of the place. The Artist Studio (#3), designed with “delicate” because the precept theme, incorporates two slanted partitions, one on the south and one on the north, into the current building. The south side choices recesses and tall side residence home windows to usher in beams of sunshine whereas guaranteeing the privateness of the studio. From Huazhong Power Plant to O•POWER Custom and Art work Coronary heart, it has been a transformational journey from a “bodily power plant” to a “spiritual electrical space. “By designing the home, we empower the place. By means of the renovation of the outdated power plant, we objective to transform industrial heritage buildings from observers and witnesses of metropolis progress into energetic contributors and leaders.
