Slideshow: a layer of perforated aluminium cloaks the bright yellow and green exterior of this Shanghai youth centre by Chinese firm Atelier Deshaus.
Located in Qingpu in the west of the city, the centre comprises a grid of rectilinear buildings that are connected to one another by a series of bridges, terraces and enclosed walkways.
The corrugated metal skin is cut away in places, revealing some but not all of the windows of each building and providing glimpses of the brightly coloured walls behind.
The largest of the fourteen buildings has white-rendered walls and encloses an open-air courtyard, while the others house classrooms, dance studios, a library, a gallery, offices and a theatre auditorium.
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Photography is by Yao Li and Zhang Siye.
The text below is from the architects:
Qingpu Youth Center, Shanghai
Whole theme is based on such idea: on the premise of adapting adjacent urban scale, a small inner public space of human scale will be created in order to reconstruct the memory of traditional townscape scale.
As we understand the nature of Teenager’s Center, the whole program was divided into a serial of small individual functional spaces which was utilized by various types of open spaces such as courtyard, plaza and lane.
The kids’ adventure was encouraged by the environment. We hope them experiencing what they might achieve in a small town, such as numerous possibilities of destination, wandering and meeting with unexpected.
In the other word, we create a place of social interaction and human care for the teenagers.
A building could also become a small city.
Architect: Atelier Deshaus (Liu Yichun / Chen Yifeng)
Design Team: Liu Yichun, Chen Yifeng, Gao Lin, Liu Qian, Wang Longhai
Location: Huake Rd, Qingpu, Shanghai, China
Design: 2009/6-2010/3
Completion: 2012/3
Building Area: 14360 sq.m
Site Area: 10906 sq.m
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