The project is situated at the entrance of Gedi Lake Park in Yinchuan. Fused with the traditional culture and regional characteristics of Yinchuan’s “Silk Road”, the building serves as the city’s landmark. The project is used as a sales center at the early stage but later functions as a civil cultural center open to the city.
The building goes for a minimalistic design approach. The circular blocks and soft and neat curved elements are integrated into the field design, resembling a strand of silk floating on the lake to embrace Gedi Lake in a natural and elegant way. The half-moon shaped roof tilts to and extends toward the Lake. The perforated slender columns are orderly scattered under the two wings of the roof. The built-in light strips glow in the evening, making the roof look like lifted up and suspended in the sky. The slab pontoon extends into the Lake, connecting human and ecology.
In terms of the urban facade, the artificial stone wall on the first floor corresponds to the perforated panel curtain wall on the second floor, representing the Oriental philosophy that “existence and non-existence give birth the one to the other”. Inspired by Malan flowers, Yinchuan’s city flower, the shape of the hole on the perforated panel is customized. The panel splice forms two curved lines, echoing the ripples of the Lake and increasing the layers of light and shadows. The facade facing the lake adopts the transparent tempered hollow glass curtain wall, matched with pear white roofing aluminum panels, looking crystal and lightweight.
At the entrance of the building, the original schist slope and the curved steel sheet wall connect and stretch inward, emphasizing the guiding function of the entrance. The front yard is pure white with trees within the waterscape; the back field is like a floating empty island, indicating a scene that “one island create one world”. The sense of deliberately created landscapes is weakened, making the space tranquil and pure. Mountain, lake, tree, island, and green land form a microclimate system along with the building, creating a lively landscape space.
The interior space is laid out along the curved wall. Irregular and high and low interlaced arc-shaped walls support the whole structure and meanwhile connect and divide different functional spaces, enriching the layers of space and increasing the spatial variability. The transparent glass curtain wall beside the lake enables visitors to perceive the changes of seasons and blurs the boundary between the building and its surroundings, hence better interacting with nature.
Relying on the ecological resources of Gedi Lake, the restraint design perfectly integrates the architecture with the ecological park planning, with the premise of respecting the environment and considering time, space, and light aspects. The project redefines the locality and contemporariness of architecture in the collision of tradition and innovation.