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<P>This exhibition complex comprises two startling multi-use buildings on Guangzhou's Pazhou Island, the site of one of the largest exhibition centres in the world. The two buildings of the complex share a common aesthetic: a big, sprawling, assemblage of giant boxes serving as the bases for an ad hoc collection of very long narrow boxes, shaped somewhat like old fashioned wooden pencil cases, of random lengths stacked loosely on top of each other. </p>
<p>The brief called for a complex which was 'unique and iconic, to present a strong identity within its surroundings and to stand out among its competing neighbours.'</p>
<P>This was no formulaic ambition for the new exhibition spaces would be likely to be competing commercially with the existing extremely well established venues on the island.
<P>One building, the commercial showcase complex has vast exhibition spaces in its base with commercial offices above. The other, the commercial, hospitality and exhibition complex has a more conventional three level exhibition building plus a double height mass entertainment floor surmounted by a 500-room luxury hotel, the Langham Place, Guangzhou, which, externally, is also a collection of strewn elongated boxes.</p>
<P>In both buildings there is a marked visual disconnection between base and superstructure although the generic overall building arrangement, especially the idiosyncratic upper sections, link the two buildings together. This largely solved the problem of creating a single image for the two buildings, 160 metres apart and separated by an existing building. The great deal of effort expended in working out how best to achieve this has been worth it. It is partly to do with the formation of the strewn elongated boxes, appearing as convex shape in the case of the hotel, concave in the case of the offices, and their unexpected and similar appearance.</p>
<P>The Langham Place, Guangzhou is organised as an open rectangle with 15 floors of conventional hotel rooms ranged along the long sides of a big central atrium.</p>
<P>Lifts, fire stairs and services are at each end. The effect from outside is of the casually arranged stack of box-like forms whose disposition roughly follows the internal arrangement of the hotel rooms. The hotel lobby is 4 levels above the unassuming ground level entrance. This is a deliberately dramatic space with heavy diagonal props providing theatrical but real support for the 15 floors above which are all visible here at the bottom of the open rectangle. Below in the podium are two floors of exhibition space and above that a high-ceilinged group of enormous rooms which can be subdivided in a variety of configurations for events such as weddings. Below ground are two loading and parking levels.</p>
<P>The office building is of similar height, 123 metres, and has the same irregular formation of casually strewn boxes though the interiors are conventional enough working offices. The office podium below spreads out away from the perimeter of the offices and although the exterior is carved up into a number of discrete giant boxes their outward ends replaced by glass walls.</p>
This exhibition complex comprises two startling multi-use buildings on Guangzhou's Pazhou Island, the site of one of the largest exhibition centres in the world. The two buildings of the complex share a common aesthetic: a big, sprawling, assemblage of giant boxes serving as the bases for an ad hoc collection of very long narrow boxes, shaped somewhat like old fashioned wooden pencil cases, of random lengths stacked loosely on top of each other.
The brief called for a complex which was 'unique and iconic, to present a strong identity within its surroundings and to stand out among its competing neighbours.'
This was no formulaic ambition for the new exhibition spaces would be likely to be competing commercially with the existing extremely well established venues on the island.
One building, the commercial showcase complex has vast exhibition spaces in its base with commercial offices above. The other, the commercial, hospitality and exhibition complex has a more conventional three level exhibition building plus a double height mass entertainment floor surmounted by a 500-room luxury hotel, the Langham Place, Guangzhou, which, externally, is also a collection of strewn elongated boxes.
In both buildings there is a marked visual disconnection between base and superstructure although the generic overall building arrangement, especially the idiosyncratic upper sections, link the two buildings together. This largely solved the problem of creating a single image for the two buildings, 160 metres apart and separated by an existing building. The great deal of effort expended in working out how best to achieve this has been worth it. It is partly to do with the formation of the strewn elongated boxes, appearing as convex shape in the case of the hotel, concave in the case of the offices, and their unexpected and similar appearance.
The Langham Place, Guangzhou is organised as an open rectangle with 15 floors of conventional hotel rooms ranged along the long sides of a big central atrium.
Lifts, fire stairs and services are at each end. The effect from outside is of the casually arranged stack of box-like forms whose disposition roughly follows the internal arrangement of the hotel rooms. The hotel lobby is 4 levels above the unassuming ground level entrance. This is a deliberately dramatic space with heavy diagonal props providing theatrical but real support for the 15 floors above which are all visible here at the bottom of the open rectangle. Below in the podium are two floors of exhibition space and above that a high-ceilinged group of enormous rooms which can be subdivided in a variety of configurations for events such as weddings. Below ground are two loading and parking levels.
The office building is of similar height, 123 metres, and has the same irregular formation of casually strewn boxes though the interiors are conventional enough working offices. The office podium below spreads out away from the perimeter of the offices and although the exterior is carved up into a number of discrete giant boxes their outward ends replaced by glass walls.
