The Chinese city of Daoming is known for its local crafts using woven and plaited bamboo. Archi-Union Architects took this on board when designing the city’s new cultural centre In Bamboo, where digital design meets cultural context.
Naturally, bamboo played a major part in the design, and not just via the façade patterns created by a local artist. With its airy design and integral garden, the building also makes visitors feel like they are in a bamboo forest. The architects soon worked out, however, that bamboo was not going to work as a load-bearing material. Instead they chose to work with glulam posts and beams to support perhaps the building’s most eye-catching feature – the roof, shaped like an infinity symbol, joins the two circular buildings into a single entity. The roof’s grey ceramic tiles, which are common in the local vernacular, hide a steel frame that creates the gentle curves. On top of this rest secondary glulam beams that have been left exposed to accentuate their look.
Read more at archi-union.com
