The City of Ningbo has a rich history of ceramic production. It was
here that the so-called Ceramic Road began. The city played an
important role in the national and international trade of ceramics
throughout the civilization’s history. That said, the use of glazed
ceramics is not simply an homage to the local traditions of Ningbo;
the building’s textured glazed ceramics also create ephemeral
reflections of the surrounding landscape. These reflections animate
the facade with varying intensity depending on the time of day,
season, and weather.
The exhibition halls are mainly allocated on the third and fourth
floors of the building. The first and second floors offer a large variety
of public spaces, including a restaurant, library and reading space,
meeting areas, a children’s education and playground, classrooms,
as well as a large multi-purpose event hall. On the roof, which is
also directly accessible from the landscape, a café invites visitors to
relax and enjoy the views of the surrounding city.
It was never the intention to demonstrate the capabilities of digital
tools by means of this project. Nevertheless, this building couldn’t
have been designed, developed, produced and built without the
help of cutting-edge digital technology. In order to cope with
the complexity of the spatial allocation and coordination of the
structure, curtainwall, secondary structure, and ceramic skin a tailor-
made computer script had to be coded. The script automatically
generated a 3D model of the structure and façade, as well as
production drawings for the respective contractors.
www.playze.com
CONNECTING PATHWAYS, BRIDGES AND
STREETS HAVE BEEN WOVEN INTO A
TOPOGRAPHY LEADING TO THE MANY
ENTRANCES OF THE BUILDING.