“The city is the locus of the collective memory. This relationship between the locus and the citizenry then becomes the city’s predominant image,both of architecture and of landscape, and as certain artifacts become part of its memory, new ones emerge.”
TOPOS DESIGN decided to build an ideal city in Xing Fu Li, which is actually a showroom for L Living, an innovative furnishing brand. 2019 is a year for L Living to show their renovation. The showroom in Xing Fu Li is the first of a series of showrooms planned for downtown Shanghai by the ambitious founder of L Living, who aims to create a new aesthetic for urban life.
Only be understanding the truth of life can we design a better future. In 2019, we moved our studio into traditional “Li Long” in Shanghai and did research on retail with a specific plan. The concept of “Ju Fu Chang” streets put forward by an article of The Bund in 2014 became our first goal. We learnt from Shanghai by measuring the streets relying on foot and bike, following the urbanism manifested by Robert Venturi‘s “Learning from Las Vegas”. There are a mass of opportunities and challenges for young architects in the spaces between skyscrapers. Through the narrative reconstruction of the old building and the new volume, we would like to dig into the urban texture with the zeitgeist-surfing design.
Xing Fu Li is a beautiful name as the “Li” in Chinese is not only a noun, but also a preposition, which means “happiness is here” in English. Before 2015, Xing Fu Li was a dilapidated and closed factory with factory-style space planning. The developers opened the campus walls, looking forward to recreating a public-friendly space combined with the sense of traditional Shanghai “Li Long”. Factory and “Li Long” are two totally different kinds of urban space; however, we finally accomplished this space replacement following the trend of Shanghai’s urban renewal. Context under the background of urban renewal in China is no longer dogmatic historicism or revolutionary modernism, but more like deconstruction. For Shanghai-style culture, the collision of diverse cultures makes anything is possible.
In that case, we are free from all anxiety. The showroom of L Living in Xing Fu Li became an epitome of the city of Rome, the gardens of Babylon, the great bazaar of Arabia, the churched of the middle ages. It is an ideal city getting rid of the shackles of historical memory and spatial prototype. It is an interior design experiment of urban architecture like the “La Citta’ Ideale” painted by Fra Carnevale.
▼Fra Carnevale, La Citta‘ Ideale
▼剖面概念图Conceptual Section
理想城市丨La Citta’ Ideale
意大利建築師罗西认为,城市是人类集体记忆的场所。在这个微缩的理想城市,我们用空间唤起记忆。
Aldo Rossi indicated that the city is the locus of the collective memory. We try to evoke the memory relying on the space in this Showroom.
The exhibition hall in first floor is designed as a market for public, facing toward the main street, six meters square, filled with solar, not only from the outside nature light, but also extend by the interior lighting polished acrylic. To divide the space, we used the three-dimensional grid. Market is diversified, except the furniture exhibition of L Living itself, we cooperated with Brownie so we have more content in this market, coffee bar and photography gallery, which makes the space more public-friendly. In order to expand the area of exhibition hall, we rejected the leaving atrium. However, we remained a 1 meter diameter round hole as context memory when constructed the floor slab. There is also luminous acrylic equipment designed for this purpose attracts your sight to the second floor.
The staircase symbolizes the rising beacon within the altering form; it not only works as circulation guidance, but also evokes customers‘ emotion. The L-shaped showcase in the entrance of the staircase is the extension of the gallery, at the same time; it is also a visible visiting circulation. After the L-shaped showcase, there is a specular space made by a piece of continuous mirror, creating an infinity and eternity atmosphere. Finally the cascade arcade leads to the second floor from first floor, to curve from straight line, to divinity from humanity.
The arcade of the staircase ended in a misty dreamland cave. Originally it is a useless space, usually used as a hidden storage. But in an ideal city, it is a narrative corner. Therefore, it is not only a equipment with visual impact, but also a spiritual space that can be touched and felt. Triangular mirrors from different angles spread in the cave, attract people to dream in the distorted space and time.
Arch as a form of architectural space has become the collective memory of human civilization. Different from the free plan of the regular furniture exhibition hall, we arranged an arcade of 3 meters wide and 15 meters long in the center of the second floor. The entire corridor is composed of three sections of large arches with ABA proportions which give a sense of classical, connecting the past with the future. As the arch here is not a structural element, we refused to use fake decorative material to express its volume or link to any specific period, but prefer to dematerialize and abstract it relying on the pure color, the dark blue.
At the center of both sides of the arcade, there are two cylindrical equipments, named ice and fire. Ice is a matrix made of light guide acrylic pole; fire is the grid formed by copper plated stainless steel shining in the middle, which become the landmarks of this ideal city, guidance toward the city-states. We also developed a highly efficient exhibition hall design strategy as if to build the infrastructure in the city. We arranged track lights, fixed showcase and wall paint, provided enough freedom for irregular display. To enhance the relationship between the arcade and exhibition hall, two rows of bronzed metal-bordered arches become the elegant frame of the production. The arcade doesn‘t end in the interior, but continues to the fa?ade, which transfer the terrace to plaza.
In “Le città invisibili”, Italo Calvino said that cities swell as sponges, scooping the flowing tide of memories. The ideal city we built for L Living will become an indelible memory, city within a city.
▼1F平面布局图1F Plan
▼2F平面布局图2F Plan
项目信息——
設計单位:TOPOS DESIGN
設計总监:林晨
项目設計師:王成
設計团队:林礼端,卢丽媛,孟舟(实习),宋竞宜(实习)
机电顾问:大麦工程咨询(王必虎,杨巧玲)
灯光顾问:王凤龙
建築摄影:CreatAR Images
项目名称:L Living上海幸福里展廳
项目业主:L Living
合作品牌:Brownie
项目地址:中国,上海市长宁区,幸福里
项目规模:场景空间面积280平方米,露台面积65平方米
設計时间:2019年4月至6月
施工时间:2019年6月至9月
施工单位:上海明阔建築装潢有限公司。
材料:磨砂亚克力,亚克力圆管,预制水磨石地砖,乳胶漆,镀铜不锈钢,实木复合地板
PORJECT INFORMATION——
Architect Firm:TOPOS DESIGN
Design Director: LIN Chen
Principle Architect:WANG Cheng
Design Team:LIN Liduan, LU Liyuan, MENG Zhou(inter), SONG Jingyi(inter)
Engineering Consultant: DAMAI Decoration(WANG Bihu, YANG Qiaoling)
Lighting Consultant:WANG Fenglong
Photographer:CreatAR Images
Project Name: L Living Showroom in Xing Fu Li, Shanghai
Project Client: L Living
Cooperative Brand: Brownie
Project Location: Xing Fu Li, Changning District, Shanghai, China