Chinese architecture studio Gad has completed a building with a gridded bamboo facade, which serves as an exhibition centre for a traditional type of Chinese wine.
The Shaoxing Rice Wine Town Reception Room is located in Dongpu, a town in China's Zhejiang province where this particular type of yellow rice wine originates.
The building is an "exhibition and experience hall" for Shaoxing rice wine
Gad – one half of former Dezeen Awards winner Gad Line+ Studio – designed the building for a part of the town that is still largely undeveloped.
It will initially serve as an "exhibition and experience hall" for Shaoxing rice wine, but will later be converted into a commercial building containing three restaurants. The centre also currently includes a bookstore and a flower shop.
It features a gridded bamboo facade
With this adaptability in mind, Gad adopted a modular approach that allows the building's layout to be easily changed.
Although the original intention was to use a wooden structure, Gad eventually opted for steel as it was felt the material would be easier to assemble and would better serve the region's rainy climate.
The building will later be converted into restaurants
This modular structure extends out to the building's facade, where the steel members are framed by lengths of bamboo.
"The bamboo planks are preprocessed into L-shaped members in the factory, which reduces the on-site assembling workload and joint treatment, and improves the construction speed and the accuracy of on-site installation," said Gad.
It is located beside the Dashu River in Dongpu
The building is located beside the Dashu River, in a largely undeveloped area of Shaoxing Rice Wine Town.
The site was originally a rice wine factory and the red brick chimney of this former structure is preserved in tribute.
A recessed ground floor creates space for outdoor seating
"The site is surrounded by dense water network," said Gad. "In ancient times, it was the waterway of Shaoxing Grain transport, facing the Dashu River in the east, with good landscape conditions."
The three-storey building takes advantage of its waterside setting, with large sections of glazing set behind the bamboo grid.
At ground level, the exterior wall is set back by one module to create a sheltered seating area for visitors.
The three-storey building has a modular structure
"Adding another frame to the outer wall of the building allows the interior solid space to retreat and form a deep and layered facade," said Gad.
"The awning, which refers to the removable windows of Jiangnan folk houses, further increases the depth and layers of the facade."
The layout is designed to be adaptable. Photo is courtesy of SUNAC China Holdings
The modularity is further emphasised inside, where furnishings follow the structure of the grid. Partitions walls are formed of gridded bookshelves, while display stands feature wooden lattices.
"The project is an experiment in modular design and construction," added Gad.
"It responds to complex functional construction demands with a unified modular design language, infusing the vitality of the times into the thousand-year-old ancient town."
A bookstore is included in the building. Photo is courtesy of SUNAC China Holdings
Design studio Linehouse combined stainless steel and meteorites to create a space-themed cafe in central Shanghai as Australian chain Black Star Pastry's first Chinese outpost.
The ground floor of the red-brick villa serves as a coffee and pastry shop for Black Star Pastry, which is famous for selling a Strawberry Watermelon Cake that was dubbed "Australia's most Instagrammed dessert" by the New York Times.
The cafe is Black Star Pastry's first in China
Shanghai-based Linehouse designed the space to evoke the feeling of being in space.
"The ground floor stirs up the incredible sensation of being aboard a spaceship," said the studio.
Linehouse designed the store to evoke a spaceship
The studio covered the walls of the cafe in stainless steel shelving that holds thousands of meteorites.
The shelving extends across the ceiling to form an arched form that the studio described as "an exploration of gravity vs weightlessness".
A countertop display contains nine floating cakes
Continuing this theme, a countertop display features nine levitating cakes. Displayed in glass containers the revolving cakes are supported by magnetic levitation.
The phrase "we are all just stardust" can be found lining the edges of the communal tables, creating an effect of each letter dripping off the edge of the table by gravity.
Elsewhere on the ground floor there are retail areas stocked with coffee beans and apparel.
A terrazzo staircase leads guests upstairs to a dining space
A staircase clad in roughcast concrete terrazzo leads the guests upstairs to an exhibition-style dining space called the Black Star Gallery.
It features artworks by four emerging international artists curated by Black Star Pastry creative director Louis Li to create an imaginary futuristic habitat.
The ceiling is lined in a metal grid. The floor is a rough concrete cast terrazzo tile, giving the space a hint of wildness and creating a museum-like mood for the art.
The gallery can be used as a tearoom in the afternoon and a cocktail lounge by night.
Blackened timber covers the floors of the private room
A private room named There There is separated from the main dining area by a deep blue velvet curtain. It contains an intimate bar wrapped in acid-etched blue metal.
Blackened wood covers the floor of the room in contrast to the exposed concrete of the cafe's other spaces. A stainless steel curved backdrop holds the wines on display.
The versatile gallery can be used during both day and night
Black Star Pastry was founded in Sydney, Australia in 2008 and is the creator of the Strawberry Watermelon Cake, the world's most Instagrammed cake according to the New York Times. This is its first store outside of Australia.
Creative direction and art curation: Louis Li – Black Star Pastry
Architect: Linehouse
Design team: Alex Mok, Cherngyu Chen, Yeling Guo, Rongli Chen, Kaihang Zhou, Leah Lin
Levitating cake display: March Studio
Branding graphics: Studio Ongarato/Noritake
Commissioned artists: Olivia Steele, Naoko Ito, Rowan Corkhill, Debbie Lawson
Artwork production: UAP
Client: Black Star Pastry
In the third of the video Dezeen interviews filmed with Richard Rogers in 2013, the late architect discussed the Lloyd's building in London and the backlash prompted by its radical design.
He was one of the world's best-known architects, famous for his pioneering high-tech architecture.
Among his most recognisable work is the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which he designed together with Renzo Piano. Following the completion of that controversial building, Rogers struggled to find work until landing the commission to design the Lloyd's building in London.
In this interview, filmed at the Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners office in Hammersmith, west London, he discussed how he convinced the conservative insurance firm to go for an inside-out design that was equally as radical as the Centre Pompidou.
"We were able to convince Lloyd's that we would put the mechanical services on the outside because mechanical services have a short life," he said.
The building proved just as divisive as its forerunner in Paris. "Once more we were attacked by everybody," Rogers said.
Read on for a transcript of the interview:
"We took about seven years to build the Pompidou Centre. We had a lot of political problems, we were taken to court regularly, for things like there was a law saying that foreigners can't do cultural buildings for France – a law which had been designed under the fascist period and no-one had bothered undoing.
"So we had lots of problems, so it took a long time. And the only good thing I suppose – or one of the good things – was that Renzo and I, being in our thirties, were very naive and we didn't realise it was really impossible, so we went on and did it.
"But at the end of it, there was no other work. Nobody wanted another Pompidou Centre. Now, the fact that we thought we could do other things didn't seem to come across.
"I went to teach in the States, in LA and at Yale. My closest partner, John Young, became a taxi driver and Renzo set up a small firm in France and had a tiny bit of work. I didn't really want to teach, I have to tell you.
The only piece of technology was a Xerox machine
"But then there was a competition for Lloyd's of London. Lloyd's had one person on the board who had heard of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
"For once the Royal Institute of British Architects had a very good president – I'm obviously biased, as we won that competition – and advised Lloyd's about us and five other people like Norman Foster, IM Pei, and so on.
"We had this competition and to everybody's surprise, we won it.
"Now it is truly different, everything's different. I mean, if we were building more-or-less a fun palace in Paris, this is a club.
"Lloyd's started in a coffee house in 1760-something where financiers met sailors, captains of boats, and they did transactions.
"So it's as traditional as you can [get]. You know, the only piece of technology when we went to see the [previous] Lloyd's building was the Xerox machine. Some people were still writing with feathers and ink.
"It was backward only in the process. Of course, it was the most famous insurance firm in the world, so there was a very cutting edge element within that.
"But we were certainly very strange people, or you may say, very strange bedfellows, for Lloyd's. And here Lloyd's really was a grey, black – bit of light grey, maybe – organisation. I mean everybody wore it, the buildings were like it and so on.
"We were again extremely fortunate, the same way as on Pompidou. The real critical thing in architecture is having a good client.
"A good client is not someone who says 'yes'. It's a client who is engaged in the evolution of the building, who responds, and it's better to have 'no' because you can probably find another way of doing it, writing it, shooting it, whatever your art is.
"The really difficult one is, 'well, I'll leave it to you, I don't care' and then at the end, it says 'no'.
"So here, we were heavily engaged. We spent half a day every month with the whole board of Lloyd's to discuss every part of it.
The Lloyd's of London building was completed in 1986
"We were able to convince Lloyd's that we would put the mechanical services on the outside because mechanical services have a short life. In other words, it's like the engines of a car.
"And the buildings have hundreds of years of life, the streets have thousands of years. It's the medieval streets, the streets now that are there are the medieval streets.
"Things which have a short life, we'll put on the outside. Keep the floors clear, because Lloyd's said they wanted two things: they wanted a building that would last into the next century, we made that one, and they wanted a building that would meet their changing needs.
"So then they produce lots of graphs to show the changing needs, and of course, the moment we finished Lloyd's there's London's big economic crisis.
"And London was about to fly to Frankfurt, and I remember well everybody discussing, including Lloyd's, whether they should move to Frankfurt.
"Frankfurt was going to be the business capital of Europe. It's very interesting to think because today London is so clearly the business capital of Europe, and probably of the world, apart from maybe New York.
I have no great love for high-tech, but it did explain something
"So we were dealing with people who knew about change, knew about risk, but hadn't a clue about art.
"The ducts, the pieces on the outside, allowed us to play a game with light and shadow. We were able to create a fifth elevation, a roof, and bring these big service towers up so that on the skyline you saw these elements.
"You know, I have no great love for high-tech, but it did explain something: we do believe in the process of construction.
"Lloyd's is built in concrete, with a certain amount of steel on the outside, and Pompidou is built in steel. And we've just finished an airport in Madrid, where the interiors is wood.
"I suppose one would like to think one uses the appropriate materials, but of course, appropriate materials are also shaped by the time you live in, where you live, shaped by the machine you yourselves are using here.
"You know when you're looking for the beauty of cameras, when you look at the beauty of watches, and so on, this certainly influences you.
"The same thing happened in the 15th century. You were influenced by what was happening at that time with perspective, which was invented in the 14th century, that clearly influenced the way that buildings were designed.
"So we use the technology of today, and the technology of yesterday when it's appropriate, to build the buildings of today.
"We thought Lloyd's was the absolute ultimate in the art of technology. When I look at it now it's handmade practically.
"Then people say, well, it's technology, and therefore it's a high-tech building. It's a bit too easy, but it's okay.
"We managed to persuade Lloyd's, and Lloyd's persuaded us, in such a way that we moved very well together.
It was the second major building by Rogers after the Centre Pompidou. Photo is courtesy of Richard Bryant
"The other unspoken hero, which I should say, which is Peter Rice, who joined us on the Pompidou, who was a brilliant engineer from Arup, and he guided us as a philosopher, as well as a technologist and engineer as he was.
"He was Irish, and had clearly kissed the Blarney Stone and could persuade us in the most wonderful and quiet way.
"We worked so well with him. Unfortunately, he died of cancer. He was a terrific guy.
"Anyhow, once more we were attacked by everybody. A year before the end, a bit like the Beaubourg, a year before the end of the building there was an investigation by the Bank of England into what was going on at Lloyd's.
"So the chairman, everybody else, had to resign. The next chairman hated us, so we had a very tough last year.
He said: 'Do you feel beleaguered?'
"The only perhaps worthwhile storytelling [is] that when Lloyd's opened – the Queen opened it of course – and I sat next to the dean of St Paul's and he said, I remember him very well, he said: 'Do you feel beleaguered?'
"A word I now remember well. I said: 'Yes, I'm being attacked on all sides, with the press, and so on.' And he told me this little story about Wren which I think we should all remember.
"He said Wren was in his seventies when he, at last, got St Paul's built. He'd started 30 years beforehand.
"He was so tired of having his building attacked and turned down that by the time he got to building St Paul's he put a 20-foot wattle fence all around the site so nobody can see it.
"So even St Paul's was a shock of the new. We think it's there forever. Certainly, Prince Charles thinks it's been there forever, but it hasn't. And it was a risky building to do in those times, which is why it is great."
With Covid-19 continuing to impact design events this year, Dezeen Events Guide has put together an up-to-date overview of 25 design weeks in 2022 including events in Stockholm, Milan, New York and London.
There are rumours that Milan's prestigious Salone del Mobile might move from its traditional spring slot, with June mooted as an alternative, but for now, the event is scheduled for 5 to 10 April 2022.
Dezeen Events Guide is a constantly updated resource listing hundreds of architecture and design events around the world. Read on for details of some of the most important design events of 2022:
The Spanish city's reign as World Design Capital 2022 kicked off this month with a programme of events that will continue throughout the year. It features an array of exhibitions, conferences and other events that celebrate design in Valencia.
Madrid Design Festival 1 February to 31 March 2022
The fifth edition of Madrid Design Festival features an extensive exhibition programme and hosts leading figures in national and international design.
Women's voices in design are prominent in this year's edition with the participation of Jane Withers, Hella Jongerius, Anna Heringer, Patricia Urquiola and Izaskun Chinchilla. They speak about their projects, philosophy and how they are creating new environments for a sustainable future.
Stockholm Design Week 7 to 13 February 2022 and 5 to 11 September 2022
Stockholm Design Week sticks to its regular February slot but minus the Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair, which will now take place from 6 to 9 September (see below). The week will consist of the usual events, exhibitions and parties at showrooms and other venues across the city.
A second edition of the week will take place from 5 to 11 September to coincide with the new dates for the furniture and light fair.
Interiors Australia and Denfair 10 to 12 February 2022
Interiors Australia and Denfair have joined forces and will take place together in Melbourne from 10 to 12 February 2022.
Denfair focuses on high-end furniture and lighting while Interiors Australia features architectural products, kitchens, bathrooms and workplace design.
Alongside the exhibition, the event features a series of talks, interviews and masterclasses with international designers. The fair is open to trade visitors only on the first two days with the public admitted on the third day.
Object Rotterdam is a design fair that showcases design products and labels from emerging and established designers across a variety of different categories and mediums.
The fair gathers design enthusiasts and professionals to explore different design disciplines including fashion, architecture, art and crafts.
Located in St Moritz, Switzerland, travelling fair brand Nomad hosts its winter edition at St Moritz in Switzerland, where it will showcase collectable design and contemporary art.
Hosted annually across eleven days, Melbourne Design Week features a creative programme of talks, tours, exhibitions and workshops. This year, the design week returns to the Australian city with the same theme as 2021's edition: "Design the world you want".
This year's first edition of twice-yearly Paris trade show Maison&Objet takes place from 24 to 28 March, having been moved from its regular January slot due to the pandemic. A parallel event called Maison&Objet In The City will take place in showrooms across Paris.
The world's biggest annual design gathering encompasses the giant trade fair at the Fiera Milano exhibition centre plus the "fuorisalone" fringe events hosted in hundreds of different venues across the city's design districts.
Iceland's largest design festival returns to Reykjavík with an event spanning disciplines including architecture, fashion, interiors and graphic design.
Claiming to be Asia's premier design fair, Design Shanghai brings together the work of both established and emerging designers from China and abroad. The show was one of the few design events to take place in China in 2021.
Clerkenwell Design Week will feature a selection of showrooms in London
Clerkwenwell Design Week 24 to 26 May 2022
After being postponed for the last two years, Clerkenwell Design Week will once again be taking place in the London neighbourhood. The festival's 11th edition will be spread across three days and a selection of the 100-plus showrooms in Clerkenwell.
Denmark's most important design fair sees design brands throw open their showrooms across Copenhagen. This year, the festival returns to its former early summer slot after moving to September for the past couple of years due to the pandemic.
Design Miami/Basel returns to Switzerland for its 16th edition providing a platform for exhibiting, acquiring, creating and discussing collectable design from around the world. The fair runs alongside the huge Art Basel art fair in the Swiss city. It is the sister event of the Design Miami show that takes place in Florida each December.
Oslo Design Fair exhibits a variety of products including furniture, lighting, jewellery and other crafts. The 2022 edition has been postponed from January to late summer due to the pandemic.
Helsinki Design Week brings together design professionals and creatives for a curated selection of citywide events in the Finnish capital. The design week looks to the theme of openness for its 2022 event and aims to explore questions surrounding sustainability, curiosity and transparency.
Design China Beijing returns for its fifth edition, showcasing international brands alongside local design talent and a cultural programme of talks and installations.
Light + Building, the world’s largest trade fair for lighting and building services engineering, returns to Frankfurt in Germany this autumn after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic and after having been postponed from its original March 2022 slot.
The 27th edition of Biennale Interieur takes place in the Kortrijk Xpo fairground at Kortrijk in Belgium. The show features booths from leading furniture and interior products companies plus special exhibitions and talks. This will be the first time the biannual fair has taken place in 2019 since the 2021 edition was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dutch Design Week will be held in Eindhoven in October
Dutch Design Week 22 to 30 October 2022
Dutch Design Week, held in Eindhoven and billed as the largest design event in Northern Europe, brings together over 2,600 designers and creatives each year to showcase the latest in design and innovation.
The biannual Orgatec office furniture trade fair will take place in Cologne this October for the first time since 2018. The event and its accompanying talks programme will explore the impact Covid-19 has had on workplace culture and design.
The Design Miami collectable design fair once again rounds off the year by bringing together designers, curators, critics and gallerists in the Florida sunshine.
Dezeen promotion:Tchoban Voss Architekten used glass-fibre-reinforced concrete panels by Rieder for the facade of EDGE Suedkreuz, an office development that combines timber and concrete in its structure.
Currently under construction in Berlin, the project consists of two seven-storey blocks, including a quadrangle set to become Germany's largest timber hybrid building.
The modular wood and concrete composite structure chosen by Tchoban Voss Architekten intends to help the project achieve a DGNB Platinum sustainability rating.
A lightweight facade was required to work with the system. This led the architects to Rieder's Concrete Skin range of glass-fibre-reinforced concrete panels.
"The use of sustainable building materials, such as the glass fibre reinforced concrete as facade material, is key for the long service life of such a building," added Rieder.
"The material also guarantees absolute safety and fire resistance due to its excellent thermal properties and is assigned to fire protection class A1 'non-combustible' according to DIN 4102."
EDGE Suedkreuz is clad with glass-fibre-reinforced concrete panels by Rieder
Reider's 13-millimetre-thick panels are weather-resistant and have a natural texture that is similar to cast concrete.
Different colour panels help to divide up the different elements of the facades. The sandy-toned Sahara panels create horizontal bands, while vertical elements are picked out in either terracotta or pale grey, depending on the building. A dark silver-grey was chosen for the window reveals.
"Not everything can be attached to the wall elements of the wood hybrid system," said Tchoban Voss Architekten co-founder Sergei Tchoban.
"Natural stone, for example, would be far too heavy; it would weigh almost 100 kilograms per square metre," he stated. "One element from Rieder is three times lighter."
"We are impressed with the feel and the surface of the concrete panels, which have a thickness of only 13 millimetres, and with the product's natural appearance," said Tchoban.
Different colour panels help to divide up the different elements of the facades
Before construction began, Rieder worked with Tchoban Voss Architekten to build a 2.5-metre-high mockup to allow them to test all of the facade details.
The cladding system offers high thermal performance and fire resistance. The panels are free of crystalline silica, which helps to improve the building's environmental credentials.
EDGE Suedkreuz is located in Berlin's newly developed Schöneberg district. Built by EDGE Technologies, the building extends over seven floors and will provide 39,000 square metres of office space.
The facade was made from prefabricated modules preassembled in the factory, which reduced cost, space and time.
"Hundreds of wall elements (including windows) and over a thousand ceiling elements were manufactured in wood-concrete construction," said Rieder.
"Wall and ceiling modules were delivered to the construction site as required, where they simply had to be joined together. This saves plenty of time and storage space on site."
Photography is by EDGE/Michael Fahrig.
Partnership content
This article was written by Dezeen for Rieder as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.
