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2021 GFD 🏆 Awards

Winner | Dalian Gemdale City · Brown Stone Castle | GEEDESIGN

Located in the heart of Ganxi Eco-tech Innovation City, the Dalian Gemdale City·Brown Stone Castle is based on an understanding of Dalian’s typical architectural styles and natural imagination of a city endowed with mountain and sea. The space that looks to go through time is constructed, and the design strategy of absolute clash is adopted to reshape the classic of brown stone. It offers visitors an experience of traveling through time and space from ancient times to nowadays; meanwhile, the site-centric feature naturally creates public vitality beyond commercial purpose, which demonstrates its urban function.

Global Future Design Awards 2022: Discounted Entries Open Now! Save $50
Super Early Discount – 20th October 2021 to 30th December 2021 – $199 = $149

🏆 Winner
Global Future Design Awards 2021

Dalian Gemdale City · Brown Stone Castle
Future Architecture Built

Firm
GEEDESIGN

Architect/Designer
Yolanda Deng

Design Team
Ye Di, Zou Qian, Hou Yinghao, Ma Jian, Xu Ruohan

Location
Dalian

Country
China

Photographer/Copyright
©Zhang Qianxi, Zeng Jianghe

The ramp is designed to give visitors more time to access the building. People are truly interacting with the space when the moment they see the project. Upon arrival at the entrance, an oversized cantilevered rhomb-shaped construction comes into view. When horizontal view changes to vertical one, the special-shaped glass extension hanging over the main structure looks modern, which presents a striking visual contrast with the seemingly original red house. Modernity and classics are mixed here to create a familiar yet novel block. The clash makes the ordinary extraordinary.

After deliberate consideration, we finally conclude an entrance design plan that achieves an aesthetic and visual balance, allowing visitors to enter the building from two totally different paths. To address the site’s elevation difference and make the construction fit better with the street, we build a step-like rooftop garden platform according to the descending terrain of the project. Visitors can enjoy natural views while walking up steps to the second-floor display space;

There is another more direct access method. Simpler modern design technique is adopted for highly transparent glass entrance to create a practical and smooth circulation. Visitors can take an elevator from the first-floor exhibition hall to second-floor display space and third-floor brand & life experience area, which primarily highlights the functionality of space.

To manifest an evolution from classics to modernity, we use warm and humble brown stone texture and simple glass to bring two contrasting colors for the building without sacrificing decorativeness and functionality. Therefore, we must focus on more details if a through-time yet connected space is expected.

Unlike traditional brown stone building, glass curtain wall and metallic lines and edges are used in place of stone lines and edges and iron railings. The two constructions look unique yet naturally fit together, which represents a homage to the classics, but goes well beyond that. To build a very attractive interface under different light conditions, we make a series of experiments and comparisons on glass materials, then choose most suitable one to match different curtain wall interfaces and create real scenes out of details.

With the emergence of new generation of residential, commercial and cultural spaces, the future of Ganxi area where Dalian Gemdale City sits is undoubtedly promising. The landmark building continues to reshape the city’s skyline till new space takes over old urban context, but we will never lose urban romance unique to Dalian city, and urban memories will be carefully kept, reinterpreted and inherited so that the city can always exhibit its most vibrant part.


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