Dutch firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) will transform a former Shanghai shipyard into a 1,500-square-meter (16,146 square-feet) Exhibition Center, after winning an international design competition to develop a concentrated event space within the city’s financial district.
The Exhibition Center is the most recent development of the waterfront area of Pudong, along the Huangpu River in the Lujiazui District. It will be positioned sited on the ramp of a former ship cradle—a support structure used to hold a vessel upright on land for building and repairs.
OMA’s renderings reveal what the firm calls a “spatial armature,” a structure suspended above a public plaza, which can be used for events including film screenings, fashion shows, and concerts. The suspended box connects to a ramp, used as a large theater space, which leads to another event space underground that can be used for smaller and more intimate gatherings.
As a response to the site’s industrial and marine history, the building’s materiality and design—an elongated structure wrapped in a metallic mesh that exposes its steel frame—resemble the unfinished ships which used to occupy the area.
OMA partners David Giannoten and Michael Kokora are leading the project, which is expected to be open to the public by the end of 2015.
For more projects by OMA, check out the firm’s profile.
