Waterstone Sales Center
Location: Xidan, Beijing Client: Meisheng Real Estate Ltd. Team: John van de Water, Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers with Wopke Tjipke Schaafstal, Bobby de Graaf, Chen Song, Yang Zhong Hui and Jia Yuan Floor area / size: 400 sqm First design: 2007-10-20
2007-10-01 Selling center of Xidan shopping nears completion
Water Stone is a high-end residential project located in the centre of Beijing. The assignment asked for a 400sqm so-called sales centre; an exhibition-like pavilion in which the apartments will be sold before they are actually built. The building has to accommodate private meetings like closing financial agreements and signing contracts while at the same time it has to seduce the public to enter. The building aims to express this ambiguous tension of simultaneously being public and private.
A standard rectangular building envelop is reshaped into an envelop that has three straight and two inclined faces. The reshaping creates a volume with two strong directions: one side seems to open up towards a street corner while the other side seems to close the building of. To emphasize the tension between public and private, the inclined elevations are executed in transparent glass while the straight walls are executed in a translucent double layered skin. Where the building opens up towards the public completely, a narrow casted view over a 1:100 scale model of the Water Stone is offered.
Pavilion Luiming
Location: Beijing | Haidian District Client: Beijing Gem Real Estate Development Co. Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Water, Joost Lemmens with Chen Song First design: 2004-05-23
Luiming is a high-income, low-rise residential neighbourhood. The assignment asked for the design of a 700 sqm sales center. The site is characterized by its special natural beauty: a view of the mountains and the presence of old trees.
To exploit these qualities, a building was developed in which two architectural routes are incorporated into one single volume. To create this volume, the three core functions of the sales center -exhibitions, offices and services- are organized parallel to each other. Then, the exhibition section is lifted onto the office volume, while the volume housing the service functions is sunk in underground.
As a result, two architectural routes arise: one outside route leading over the roof of the building and one route inside the building. Both routes are akin to walking along a mountain trail. The outside route leads to a viewing platform, from which the neighbourhood can be overlooked; the inside route leads along exhibitions to a void, which offers a framed view out over the mountains.
