ICE @ Hainan: Coffee

For us the fascination of the new Chinese urbanism lies the development of themed cities. They can be based on nearly anything: Flower cities, medical cities and even coffee cities (like in our case) are forming the new urban landscape. Where traditionally a city evolved in all its complexity around trade or defence, the themed urbanism transforms the complexity of cities into a brand. All those new city developments are using similar ingredients that are loaded with an identity, that is either rooted in features found on site and or practices from the region.

Yet the peculiar identity of the region will be scaled from a potential singular point/building to a city. This scalar change has an interesting effect on the development: Imagine you take the Eiffel Tower in Paris and replicate it as many times as possible throughout the city. What used to be unique becomes ubiquitous. As if one is not enough content to give quality. Repetition becomes reassurance of quality.

A usual mix of the city looks like this: A vast trading centre with convention area, sales halls and infrastructure hub is surrounded by hotels, entertainment streets and centres, exhibition areas for the theme, offices and a vast area for residential development. All branded, all themed, all empty for the most part.

When we were approached by the coffee town in Fushan, Hainan, we were fascinated by the idea, that an entire city can evolve around coffee. They took great length to justify the massive development with the obviously delicious local coffee production.

To our surprise, we were greeted by a gate of Phoenix and Dragon instead of giant coffee beans, followed by an ever so popular italian plaza and village of the most bleak character. Nothing seemed to work together as all buildings were either for trade or administration. We couldn't spot any residential development which at least would have added some life to the public spaces. We enjoyed the coffee however. Delicious and really special. We felt sad, that such exquisite taste cannot be mirrored by the urbanism.

Greeted by Phoenix and Dragon:

Plaza and Adminstration:

Iconic Clock Tower:

We were obviously were fascinated by the findings on site and were attracted to the idea of creating a bold statement that takes on the theme of the city and evolves architecture around the idea of nature, leisure, farming and yes, maybe coffee as well. Being in a hilly environment, where slopes were lush and green and used for coffee farming. The breeze from the sea adds a healthy saltiness to the tropical, moist air, which we think is responsible for the delicious taste of the local coffee. We saw a potential to put more emphasis on nature, natural materials, fresh air, outdoor and landscape as the identity to enhance what ever city evolves around the theme of coffee.

We proposed a few strategic concepts to the client and which evolved around leisure and nature and illustrated it by transforming the existing identity buildings first. As an alternative to the current gate, we proposed an architectural canopy, that puts emphasis on organic materials and light, shade, air.  

We envisioned buildings to be more open to the environment by creating large terraces and big cantilevers for self shading. 

An sightseeing tower replaced the clock tower with a viewing platform around a coffee tree on top of the city.

We actually came quite far with this project. There were multiple committee meetings in our favour and we got very excited about the project potentials at some point. However, a few months later, key people of the projects stopped responding to our queries. It fell into the same time of massive arresting of politicians and business figure heads. We were told, that everybody will be playing safe for now and reduce spendings and developments. The Chinese business environment has slowed down by then already and we were sure that such development will be observed suspiciously by the government as well at this point in time. So we abandoned the project with sweet memories of delicious coffee remaining only.

Team: Ulrich Kirchhoff, Louise Low, Claudia Wigger, William Liu, Chi Chuan Yuan, Liu Wei, Isabella Ducoli, Eugenio Fontan

© 2015, ice - ideas for contemporary environments

ICE @ HK

We have put our focus back to the territory of Hong Kong. Currently working on six projects, that vary in scale, scope and stage, we are glad to bring back our expertise to our home base. Being a smaller design firm, we are always picky about our selected projects, balancing the interest we have for the site and the business potential of the project. Together with our JV partner from L&N Architects, we have currently taken on small to tiny sites with highly complex site constraints, ranging from topographical challenges to construction challenges.

With our hotel project in Shenyang still ongoing, we have stopped bidding for China jobs for over a year now. It has been a slow process of change in the way architecture is done in the PRC. With the current reconfiguration of power in China, architecture is also subject to change.

Architecture being a small potato in the bigger context of things, it is however a visual representation of the willingness of the 'power' to express the ideological direction, it is willing to take. Throughout the last two years, we have been working with clients in China, who may or may not haven't been reached yet by this new agenda. Still they have been pushing us into design territories, we already could anticipate, will cause problems within a short period of time.

Even more, being a commercial firm from abroad, our projects were sooner or later to collide between the healthy and needed correction in the market of architecture and the still existing vanity of certain clients to pursue their dreams of iconography and spectacle.

Being back to Hong Kong is a healthy process of humbling down, dealing with the local regulations and high construction costs only, complying with mandatory requirements of sustainability and insurances and health care for co-workers and even us unrelated construction staff. Solutions have to be found within a holistic understanding of a building. We are architects after all and not designers of dreams any longer.

Construction Log June: Springs in Summer

Back from Shenyang and a major site meeting for our Springs Hotel. Our biggest construction site reaches already L7. 16 more floor to go. Our local architect is CSCEC, China State Construction. The hotel will feature two 70 x 30 meter ballrooms, stacked on top of each other. As usual, the changes made on the construction site forces us to change design at times. But it is an adventure.

Team: Ulrich Kirchhoff, Louise Low, Claudia Wigger, Jorge Benetirez, Matteo Biasiolo, Celine Clivaz, Agnieszka Drankowska, Isabella Ducoli, Eugenio Fontan, Sevan Spiess,  Jorge Gil Suarez, Satoshi Yamada, Yue Zhang

© 2014, ice - ideas for contemporary environments

Construction Log SYH

We love construction sites! Last time we went to site, the basement was excavated and the pile heads done. Two months later we are seeing the ground floor covered, just before winter will halt construction.

The project is our winning entry for a 90,000 sqm luxury hotel in Shenyang, featuring the one of the larges free spanning ballrooms in China. We are part of a larger consortium (larger means also larger problems, not necessarily better solutions), responsible for the partial design of the architecture, all facades as well as all interiors. The bumpy road gets rewarded by such site visits where you see beside the massive construction problems also the immense large scale of the project - and our ideas becoming real. 

The first picture is the overview of the entire ground, second picture is taken inside the main hotel core. And the third picture is taken from the drop off looking into the lobby area.

If nothing goes wrong, the superstructure will be up to the top floor (25 floors) by middle of next year. The facade should be finished before the end of 2014. And opening will be in 2015.

Team: Ulrich Kirchhoff, Louise Low, Claudia Wigger, Jorge Benetirez, Matteo Biasiolo, Celine Clivaz, Agnieszka Drankowska, Isabella Ducoli, Eugenio Fontan, Sevan Spiess,  Jorge Gil Suarez, Satoshi Yamada, Yue Zhang

© 2013, ice - ideas for contemporary environments

Construction Log March: SZXC - Completed

With more than a year delayed due to us unknown circumstances...

...finally one construction site less.

Concept Model for Lighting Concept

Planning Concept

Lift Lobby

Main Corridor

Reception

Reception Counter

Lobby Lounge

Lobby Lounge

Floor Plan

Company Logo

Conference Room

Conference Table

CEO Reception

CEO Office

CEO Table

CEO Table Detail

Female Toilet

Male Toilet Washbasin

Male Toilet Washbasin with Mirror

Male Toilet Cubicles

Manager Room

Meeting Room

Corridor

Second Reception

The design is an office interior for a commodities and finance trading company, based in Shenzhen and Hong Kong. For their corporate headquarter in Shenzhen, we were asked to design the project for a cellular office organization within a high-profile building in a prime area of the city.

Located in a central core office, the floor is separated in units for lease and a main office which houses two sub companies of the corporate holding. With two entrances on the other side of the core and 20 over office and meeting rooms, the orientation within the space is rather confusing. 

We designed the project by putting the main focus on ceiling and floorplan as an enhancement and representation of the circulation system. The ceiling is guided by light troughs which lead to publicly accessible rooms. The floor is a direct reflection of the ceiling with rough and glossy surfaces. 

To differentiate the two entrances to the office, the character of the finishes transforms from metallic to organic, from corian, aluminium and glass to wood and leather.

Team: Ulrich Kirchhoff, Louise Low, Claudia Wigger, Matteo Biasiolo, Celine Clivaz, Jorge Gil Suarez, Juliana Kei, Sandy Lee, Olgierd Nitka, Sevan Spiess, Lien Thanh Gruetzmacher, Jacky Yp

© 2013, ice - ideas for contemporary environments

Construction Log February: SZXC

It has been a haunting project for the office. We tendered the detail design on and a half years ago to contractors. Due to the economic crisis as well as other issues, the project is about to finish now only. Being 1650 sqm it is rather complex for an interior project and not really our ground of expertise, yet it stretches beyond the usual period of construction. Finally it is getting there and we look forward to the completion of the project after Chinese New Year.

The project has been a challenge as the client's brief was suggesting a compartmentalized office with small cubicles for different departments. We took this as an opportunity to express the complexity of the circulation in ceiling and in floor only, creating a visual and spatial guiding system throughout the office public corridors.

The client added plants to the construction site at this point. It is a funny way to occupy and own the space. In the end it shows that architect's obsession and client's obsession might not align that naturally...

Team: Ulrich Kirchhoff, Claudia Wigger, Louise Low, Matteo Biasolo, Esteban Becerril Pellon, Jorge Gil, Juliana Kei, Sandy Lee, Olgierd Nitka, Lien Thanh Gruetzmacher, Jackey Yp

© 2013, ice - ideas for contemporary environments