Shangen Blossom Pavilion, Wenzhou, China, Zhejiang Province Architecture Images, Chinese Buildings
Shangen Blossom Pavilion in Zhejiang
23 Nov 2021
Design: SpActrum
Location: Shangen Village, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, P.R.China

Shangen Blossom Pavilion
The Shangen Blossom Pavilion is a brutal reaction to this overly tidied-up, renovated village. It comes from a swirl that responds to the surroundings: the need for gatherings by the bridge, the desire to climb high for the views, and the structural support that simultaneously pulls up the swirl and cones into the ground. The cone collects rainwater passing through the sloping planter walls and drains it into a pond on the ground. The cone stops, allowing sunlight into the rooms underneath. It breaks the boundaries of building and landscape and blends existing features into a vivid built environment for people to enjoy.
Shangen Village is a renovation project in Wenzhou, dedicated to transforming the once traditionally built village into a tourism destination. SpActrum left the project soon after we proposed the master plan during 2017-2018. The village has been hugely cleaned up since then but has lost some of its ancient ambience. The once charming chaos has turned into the blankness of purposeful building activity. The SpActrum team became involved again, aiming to recall and restore the power of ambiguity once felt on the site, and started to work on an empty plot by the village bridge.

The site is an empty plot adja...