Wenzhou: The Latest Architecture and News

Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects has been awarded first prize in the competition to design the Student Center and Library for the Wenzhou-Kean University in Wenzhou, China. Set on 500 acres of land in a rural mountainous region, the 25,000 square meter project will provide learning and living space for 8,500 students.

Wenzhou-Kean University is cooperatively run by Wenzhou University, in China, and Kean University, in New Jersey, USA, and aims to merge Chinese and American teaching methodologies. Thus, the new Student Center and Library is focused on embracing diversity, interaction, and the sharing of knowledge.

Videos

Kean University has announced plans to open a new architecture school based on the design philosophy of Michael Graves. Following the footsteps of a man who laments the “loss of drawing,” the new Michael Graves School of Architecture will prioritize hand drawings as a key to design process.

“In our technologically savvy world, to this day, Michael Graves’ philosophy is to draw by hand first so that the students see, ‘feel’ and experience the new building spatially. Then, only after the drawing is complete will the students transfer the design to a computer so that the computer becomes an execution tool, not an ideation tool,” describes acting dean and former student of Graves, David Mohney.

HENN has been selected to design a 160-meter, mixed-use tower for a new Central Business District in the eastern China metropolis of Wenzhou. Located in close proximity to the Ou Jiang river, on the district’s southern edge, the Wenzhou Tower hopes to serve as the gateway to the new city development.

+ 8

• Architects

  UNStudio

• Location

  Wenzhou, China

• Architects in Charge

  Ben van Berkel, Astrid Piber

• Design Team

  Hannes Pfau, Ger Gijzen, Juliane Maier, Martin Zangerl and Sontaya Bluangtook, Amanda Chan, Albert Gnodde, Jan Kokol, Patrik Noome, Mo Lai, Jan Rehders, René Rijkers, Stefano Rocchetti, Shuang Zhang

• Project Year

  2013

• Photographs

  Courtesy of UNStudio

• Location

  Wenzhou, China

• Project Year

  2013

• Photographs

  Courtesy of UNstudio

Dutch architecture firm UNStudio has announced that their proposal for the Yongjia World Trade Center Competition has been selected as the winning entry. Unlike the typical world trade center—which usually represents only a concentration business or financial programs—UNStudio has incorporated recreational and cultural facilities and residential units into their plan. For the site in the riverside city of Wenzhou, located in the southeastern Zhejiang province of China, UNStudio identified the driving force behind the project as the "notion of precious objects on a tray...where the continuous podium landscape occupies the entire site and serves as a tray-like, green plain for the towers."