Architect 2014-02.pdf
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81<br />
Tianjin<br />
EcoCity<br />
Ecology<br />
and Planning<br />
Museums<br />
Steven Holl ArcHitectS<br />
Tianjin, China<br />
The governments of Singapore and<br />
China are partnering to build a new<br />
eco-city for 350,000 on a reclaimed<br />
salt pan and polluted tidal flats in<br />
Tianjin (approximately 80 miles from<br />
Beijing), in order to demonstrate<br />
sustainable best practices. Anchoring<br />
opposite sides of a plaza, the Ecology<br />
and Planning museums, which (at<br />
215,278 square feet apiece) incorporate<br />
exhibition spaces, offices, a public<br />
plaza, event spaces, and a café, are<br />
the first elements that will be built<br />
in the cultural district. One museum<br />
is a rectangular volume with large<br />
voids that appear to be carved away;<br />
the other, more sculptural form<br />
represents the collective spaces<br />
subtracted from the first. Inside and<br />
out, the design approach yields a<br />
variety of heroic, irregularly shaped<br />
spaces. In the curvilinear Ecology<br />
Museum, visitors spiral upward<br />
along a ramp that traces the edge<br />
of a large atrium. The rectilinear<br />
Planning Museum—with an exterior<br />
shear wall made of bamboo-formed<br />
concrete—tells the story of the city’s<br />
formation. “It has a strong identity<br />
and it’s compositionally interesting,”<br />
juror Lise Anne Couture said. “There’s<br />
coherence between the interior and<br />
the exterior, and between one interior<br />
space and another.” Vernon Mays<br />
ARCHITECT February <strong>2014</strong> WWW.arCHITeCTMaGaZINe.COM
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