CollignonArchitektur

A new large landscape park, called "Longtou Temple Park", has been created in the heart of the Chinese City of Chongqing. CollignonArchitektur in cooperation with IBO have designed two landmark buildings serving as showcase projects of sustainable building design. Considering the local climate with temperatures well about 30 °Celsius we have created a climate friendly, energy saving, innovative concept for these buildings.

The entrance building marks the gateway to the Park. A flexible, L-shaped office building encloses an open L-shaped atrium and the square conference block, a cube made of corten steel plates. Architecturally the building is a composition of this rough steel cube, a golden wing on the roof of the building and the visual abstraction of the timber lamella façade of the offices.

The south facing office façade is equipped with multilayered sun protection measures, designed to limit the energy transmission to between 30 and 8 percent. The outer layer consists of sliding panels with mechanically adjustable wooden slats, adjustable to the position of the sun and the desired daylight inside. An adjacent water pond following the full length of the office façade is equipped with spray fountains creating natural cooling by evaporation.

The office, conference and atrium areas are ventilated naturally. The large wing above the atrium has been aligned to the prevailing wind direction. Following the principal of an airplane-wing, the passing wind creates an area of low pressure, which extracts the air, supported by the natural thermodynamic airflow through the atrium. Fresh air streams into the building through earth channels, which are chilled by the natural low temperature of the surrounding soil. In peak climate conditions the ventilation and air-conditioning can be supported mechanically. As a source for cooling and heating energy the system has solar panels on the roof of the building.