Kengo Kuma's firm Kengo Kuma and Associates has designed a tent-like tourist transportation center on a waterfront in Xiangcheng District of Suzhou, China.

Named Xiangcheng Yangcheng Lake Tourist Transportation Center, the structure acts a new interpretation of a tent with with extruded aluminum materials.

Image © Erieta Attali

The 6,848-square-metre building functions as tourist center as well as a ship yard, retail space. The new building draws an introverted architectural language through its double-roofs. Designed as two building, the two structures are connected with a bridge and takes visitors via a ramp. The ramp is shielded by a secondary roof that extends towards waterfront.

Image © Tsehou Hsiao

Due to its irregularly-overlapped roofs, it is impossible to understand where the actual buildings start and end under roofs. The building was designed as a port terminal for the lake, called Yangcheng, which is known for the production of Shanghai crabs.

"We aimed to build a topographic structure as a large hill by randomly placing aluminum extruded materials with single-sized sections," said Kengo Kuma and Associates.

Image © Erieta Attali

In the interior, the spaces are designed as the assemblage of slanted floors, in order to maintain the same landform both in inside and outside that create some random yet ambiguous state.

Kengo Kuma is known with the use of local materials and the use of different materials on different typologies. By using materials in different spatial dimensions, the architect creates various architectonics and textures applied on facades.

Image © Erieta Attali

Image © Erieta Attali

Image © Erieta Attali

Image © Erieta Attali

Image © Tsehou Hsia

Kengo Kuma and Associates recently renovated Camper’s first shop in Barcelona with vault-shaped ceramic plates. The firm also completed a community library and welfare center in Yusuhara Town, Japan.

Project facts

Project name: Xiangcheng Yangcheng Lake Tourist Transportation Center

Architect: Kengo Kuma and Associates

Location: Xiangcheng District, Suzhou, China

Program: tourist center, ship yard, retail

Date: 2018.10

Size: 6,848m2

Top image © Erieta Attali

> via Kengo Kuma and Associates