Xianfeng Community Renovation / Atelier cnS + GZUPDS

Xianfeng Community Renovation / Atelier cnS + GZUPDS

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Text description provided by the architects. Located in the center of Shiqiao sub-district of Panyu, Xianfeng Community has been the political and commercial center of Panyu since ancient times and is the epitome of Panyu’s history and culture for over a thousand years. Xianfeng Community has prominent clan settlement culture and rich industrial and commercial trade cultural relics. Since the 21st century, Panyu District has been actively integrated into the development of the main urban area of Guangzhou, forming an economic, educational, and residential agglomeration to the north, which has led to the shift of the urban center of Panyu to the north, and the function and space of the city bridge have gradually declined, becoming a depression for the urban development of Panyu. The old glory is no longer. Under the background of China’s comprehensive promotion of the renovation of old urban communities, this project is launched to preserve the history and culture of the sub-district and reproduce its collective memories, and explore new paths and new methods of micro-renovation that are different from the general practice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxUAS3RRuzU

Protection and utilization of Architectural styles in different eras. The community has preserved many architectural complexes which can be dated back to the Qing Dynasty or modern times, including buildings with wok-ear gables walls, Oyster shell walls, folk houses in the Qing Dynasty, red brick houses in the 1950s and 1960s, pitched roof buildings, modern public, private houses, collective residential buildings, etc. These buildings have small, dense, and compact ancient lanes full of Lingnan style and exquisite reliefs, which form a sharp contrast with the street scale of the new urban area.

In terms of planning, the project highly respects the original street style and retains every traditional street. Extract elements such as traditional blue bricks from the block to form a harmonious and unified architectural image of the block. Subdivide the facade scale, change the extensive facade style of the original modern buildings, and form a continuous and unified historical style block. The project has protected and repaired some residential buildings with Lingnan characteristics on the site, and demolished or renovated the surrounding buildings in addition to the illegal ones, thus reproducing the integrity and continuity of the historical space. The interface of the northern part of the community originally facing the external space is too negative because of the old red brick and enclosure. By removing the wall blocking the building, the building will be opened to Huancheng West Road, making it easy for people to get around. We will also change the original characteristic brickwork form of Xianfeng to make the red brick building more attractive.

Public Participation with collective emotion as the link. As the old center of Shiqiao, Xianfeng Community has attracted the attention of the people, experts, and enterprises inside and outside the community since its transformation. People actively plan the ways and methods of participating in the transformation. During the transformation process, residents actively participated in the co-creation activities organized by the community, and put forward suggestions for improving the quality of the community environment and the level of public service from the aspects of community transportation, public service, open space, lighting, tourist signs, cultural display, etc. Some private house owners in the community are also carrying out independent renovations of their houses according to the planning and design guidelines. For the private property houses in the community that have been out of repair for a long time and lost their functions, the design has developed a special reinforcement plan with the attitude of protection and respect. In the process of transformation, residents have a strong sense of community identity, belonging, acquisition, and happiness.

Integrated System of “Memory–Space–Functions”. Architectural styles of different eras serve as the catalyst in creatively proposing an integrated system of “memory – space – functions”. Based on the oral history of local residents, the planning integrates the cultural stories, residents’ memories, and featured business formats into buildings of various eras. With four memory zones, five memory paths, as well as eight elaborately designed key memory nodes, and 34 state-owned houses, the planning reproduces integral and continuous historical spaces, making the local residents’ memories an organic part of the authentic spaces and featured business formats, and offering an experience of the place where time and space become a seamless whole. The old Xianfeng Primary School is located in the center of the community and belongs to the cross-era intersection central area. It is the location of the community residential committee, and also the leisure center for residents. It records the collective memories of the Xianfeng Community from ancient times to the present, and it is an intersection of memories in time and space. However, the public open space within the community is small, the function is single, and the sports facilities are insufficient. The design hopes to open and display-oriented public service functions are implanted to extend the memory of place.

The design opens the pattern of the original building and embeds the large public space into the space frame of the original Xianfeng Primary School through structural reinforcement, floor cutting, and other related technologies. The original scattered building blocks are connected in series, and the openness and attractiveness of the space are improved under the condition of convenient access to the Kaifeng overhead floor. At the same time, the extracted traditional architectural forms are injected into the design of community service clusters, so that residents can feel the traditional style of old Panyu when they contact these community service clusters.

In order to show the cultural history of Xianfeng and Panyu, the project will wrap the museum group in a large white box to highlight the uniqueness of historical culture in this building site. The two display surfaces at the corner are inlaid in the window opening with a curved perforated aluminum sheet. In these different forms of curved perforated aluminum sheets, the treasures of Xianfeng and Panyu culture and history are displayed. This white box with a unique window is called the “Window of Shiqiao”.

Implementation effect. As a result of the increasingly improved community environment, cultural creative industries have been spontaneously fostered in the recent year, which has attracted former Panyu residents to move back and artists, and start-ups to move in. The mechanism to integrate historical memory, historical space, and industrial development has started to generate positive results.