Technical efforts
The local area can get extremely hot in the
summer. So, although the internal workings
of the building, including temperature
control, were not SCA’s responsibility (a
local design ‘institute’ i.e. office is required
for all Chinese projects on this scale – in
this case it was Tongji Architectural
Design), the practice wanted to help reduce
the load on the air conditioning as much as
possible. “The columns and the canopy act
as a shading device, particularly round the
front, where it’s mainly curtain wall,”
Chilton says. “The predictions are there
will be a lowering of what the air
conditioning usage would have been
without those elements.
Once they had a rough idea what they
wanted to do in terms of the canopy and
columns, the next challenge was getting it
to work structurally. “We didn’t want the
columns to just be there for show,” Chilton
explains. “We wanted them to be very
slender, but also load-bearing and able
to hold the canopy up – for us it was
really important.”
Achieving this meant a lot of hard
work with structural engineers Buro
Happold. They initially came up with
a system where columns could intersect
a couple of times along the length to create
a structural connection, while maintaining
the slenderness the designers were after.
“Unfortunately, the programme wasn’t
going to allow us to develop that as it
required far more work onsite,” Chilton
explains. “There would have been
thousands of bespoke connection joints
required between columns.”
Because of the time pressure making the
solution unfeasible, the team settled on a
system where the canopy is cantilevered
from the building, with the columns
providing additional support. Chilton says:
“They do help to stabilise it in terms of
its torsional stiffness, so there’s a certain
structural component to them, but
regrettably not fully as we had intended,
adding, “you just have to adapt.”
Despite the change of plan, the hollow
steel columns are still 300 mm thick.
“What the engineers achieved is still
pretty amazing,” Chilton says. “They
developed a special sliding joint to take up
vertical movement, and its still designed in
such a way to provide lateral stiffness.” The
steel columns were all welded onsite and
then erected into place – “it happened
incredibly quickly once they started work
on it, it was interesting to see,” says
the architect.
Materials
Aside from the steel used for the columns,
the practice have utilised a variety of
materials. The cantilevered elements of
the canopy are steel plates welded
together to form triangular ‘bays’ filled
with gold-coloured anodised aluminium
louvres, chosen to represent the leaves at
the top of the bamboo forest. Each ‘bay’ is
orientated differently and the louvres set
at varying angles in order to create a
random and ever-changing shade pattern
on the building itself. “It’s all the same
extrusion, it’s just been chopped into
different lengths and installed at different
angles,” Chilton explains.
The building envelope comprises two key
materials – glass and rendered blockwork.
The blockwork accounts for about two
thirds of the building. “It’s super low
tech,” Chilton says. “The budget on the
theatre is very modest, it’s comparable to
buildings which would have far less of a
visual impact, so we’ve just tried to use the
budget wisely.”
Although there is a large amount of
blockwork, the columns obscure it to a
large degree: “It gets lost in the visual
noise,” says Chilton. “Having something
which per metre is more expensive than you
can afford at the front and something much
cheaper at the back, you create a balance
with the budget but manage to optimise theA CANOPY OF STEEL ‘LEAVES’
The canopy is made up of steel plates welded together
to form triangular ‘bays’ filled with gold-coloured
anodised aluminium louvresAll images © Steven Chilton ArchitectsPROJECT REPORT: CULTURAL, CIVIC & FAITH BUILDINGS 35ADF AUGUST 2019 WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
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