Zhengzhou Jianye Football Town Tourist Center / SHUISHI

Curated by 韩爽 - HAN Shuang
June 07, 2019

Architects: SHUISHI
Area: 2725.0 m²
Year: 2019
Photographs: Yijie Hu
Manufacturers: HENAN ZHONGBO GLASS CO.LTD, Zhengzhou IceSnow Construction Engineering Co., Ltd.

Text description provided by the architects. Jianye Football Town, a town of sports aesthetics in the Cherry Valley Scenic Area, Erqi District, Zhengzhou, integrates in it the natural scenery, sports, recreation and culture. According to the construction plan of the football town, a Jianye Football Town Tourist Center of about 3000m2 will be built at the main entrance to the football town on the platform southwest of Houzhang Highway. It will be the reception and exhibition space for the whole football town in the future.

The tourist center lies at the entrance and represents the image of the football town, and the owner, Jianye Group, naturally hopes that it is unique, eye-catching and unforgettable. The difficulty in the design lies in how the architect can design an original building that blends perfectly with the local environment.

The inspiration of the architectural design comes from the wind-accumulated landform of the local loess gullies, and an array of high and low walls, like continuous hills growing out of the loess platform, extend to the incoming tourists. The low-profiled design that mingles with the environment expresses a respect for the place; however, the unified motif vocabulary presents the momentum and integrity of the architectural complex, and achieves a strong visual impact and shock.

The entire building is free of columns, and box shear walls are used as main load-bearing structure to support the steel floors and roof trusses. This is an extremely difficult challenge in terms of structure, which is used as the most straightforward expression of formal aesthetics. The alternation of solid shear walls and clear glass walls also reflects the architectural unity of functional, formal and structural logics.

The facade of the building, in a bold attempt, uses rammed earth to pay respect to the region and the natural environment. Subject to the scientific system design by the rammed earth consulting team and the texture and color control by the architectural design team, local primary color red clay and primary color loess are used as raw materials and upper and lower basic color gradations, and each layer of rammed earth is controlled at 150mm thick. Rammed layer by layer, the earth creates a general effect that passes from ocher color to khaki from top to bottom.

The tourist center of Zhengzhou Jianye Football Town is so far the tallest hand-built rammed earth building in the world. It is a practice that perfectly combines architectural functions, natural features, regional culture and contemporary aesthetics, and an exploration and bold attempt to combine traditional architectural techniques with contemporary construction techniques. The integration of building with environment brings to the building a power that comes from this magical yellow land and the great nature. It's also the corporate culture and sportsmanship that Jianye wants to express.