Crescent Shaped Structure Completely Enveloped in GKD Escale Silver Skin
Located in South China we find the city’s capital Guangzhou and a large GKD metal mesh project designed by Steffian Bradley Architects. The project is purposed as a children’s venue. Guangzhou is a top city in China, next to Beijing and Shanghai, in terms of size and population. The southern China city is quite prosperous and serves as the main manufacturing hub of the Pearl River Delta. It is here that the cultural hub, the Guangzhou Library, the Guangzhou Opera House, the area Museum, and the Guangzhou No. 2 Children’s Palace serves as the bustling city’s Culture and Art Square.
The center is full of stimulating activities for children to participate in such as dance, painting, chorus, and fine arts. Also within the Children’s Palace building the children can hone their computer skills and even try their hand at 3D animation. Children’s Palaces are common among large Chinese cities and, for a fee, children under 15 can seek artistic or athletic education in the center’s 90 multi-functional classrooms. Each program has a dedicated area by design, while the building as a whole is constructed to create one cohesive, geometric look and feel.
The center began in 2005 with two thousand children enrolled, while quickly growing to twenty thousand by the following semester. The building is broken into a northern tower and a southern tower with a crescent-shaped promenade in the center. The northern tower is used for the training area, and the southern tower is used for public service.
Installation consisted of 3 feet by 20 feet mesh panels, which are then added to two jointless facades. The GKD metal fabric covered the majority of the building project with a total of 18,000 square feet of metal mesh used. The material was used because metal fabric offered the structure the flexibility required to wrap compound curves while still allowing for the natural flow of the light and air. A striking characteristic of the Children’s Palace in Guangzhou is the two cylinders defining the roof of the large building. This defining feature evokes the role of traditional roofs seen in Chinese architecture. Throughout the entirety of the Children’s building GKD metal mesh, specifically Escale, was used.
Information courtesy of www.newsgd.com
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