A Ceremonially Open Design of the Club cum Display Center for Designers and Building Materials Entrepreneurs, Suzhou
开放仪式的苏州设计师与建材企业家俱乐部展示中心
Located in the New District of Suzhou, the Club cum Display Center is renovated out of an existing commercial warehouse. The exterior and the interior are two completely different settings: with the exterior plain like any other warehouses while the interior is already a rationally configured and spatially generous environment teeming with great sense of warm hospitality. The interior genuinely depicts the meaning of the day of Opening Ceremony and conceptually about its very open characteristics as a Designers Club cum Display Center.
The Club cum Display Center is truly designed up to its intended dual function objectives. Building or architectural materials, equipments or fixtures, together with all kinds of textural materials or objects, they are all being effectively applied onto and esthetically exhibited on the floor, on the wall and on the ceiling, on the pedestals or on the tables, etc. Full of open and private areas, suitable for noisy and quiet functions, the thoughtful interior design is all prepared for Display as well as for Club functions that require large to small meeting areas, lounges for hearty chat, reading area for browsing, and private office space large enough for meeting as well as business interaction. Indeed, everybody present in it has a chance to find his or her individual niche for personal expression or engage in public interaction.
Nothing complicated in its meaning of space, the interior places strong emphasis on simplicity; it is easy to comprehend and pragmatic to use. In other words, it is a design or a space that speaks for itself. On top of being an interactive clubbing function, it is fundamentally a display center that demands functionally wide, open, spacious areas for most forms of display or exhibition, in this case, for buildings materials,.
The design is close to minimalist in approach. It takes only a few minutes to get very familiar with the place. It is very squeaky clear in demarcating different functional areas and volumes. Unambiguous in floor configuration and simplistic in volumetric form, the spatial relationship between the first floor and second floor is succinctly integrated. Activities on the second floor can be visually perceived through the large transparent glass windows and through some open wells in between floor.
In fact, the design allows for maximum accessibility. One will never get lost inside the Display Center; one is easily led around since the spaces speak for themselves. It is a highly malleable design, i.e. the design allows for possible contingent or transformable uses. It can easily be transformed for other functional uses under different circumstances. For instance, the largest meeting area can be enlarged by extending into the huge hall beyond; whereas, the hall itself can even be transformed into an interactive place, say, for dancing, for a small concert performance, for ceremonial purposes, and for some other imaginative uses as the user wishes to. Tastefully executed to segregate functions but arranged in orderly manner, the spatial configuration also takes into consideration to allow for separate or individual display function.
The Display Center contains many smaller and well-relegated niches; there are also many interesting twist and turn trailers, playful up and down levels for the visitors to explore. The contemporary context is generously sprinkled with many traditional elements at the carefully selected but charming display corners, or some areas suitable to ponder or to admire at those neat and pretty displays like some buddhistic figurines, empty bird cage, pebbles and stones, classical cabinetry or modern carpentry, etc.
If examined carefully, there are two places that boldly fuse the colors or graphic elements commonly found during the 1960s. These two places are the wall rich in graphic decor right by the larger lounge on the second floor and the checkerboard resilient floor carpeting of the large meeting area on the first floor. These two areas take on the retro-look. The retro appearance is much reminiscent of the carefree or freewill nature of the past era, suitable for the assigned congregation function, and perhaps as intended. Yet, the idea can still be employed inclusively as a part of the contemporary interior design.
In general, the Club cum Display Center is a well-presented design that it provides boundless possibilities for one to think and re-think about once his or her presence in the visited place. Essentially, it is a place full of memories where one is likely to recall that particular visited corner or a place worthy for re-visiting. The overall design warmly exudes its distinctive design concept in very effective and apt manner. The design genuinely circumscribes its intrinsic spatial requirements as a hospitable space, of course, directly defines the clear cut design skill of the designer by none other than Tommy Liu-Tao, the Senior Interior Designer of the Interior Design Section of Gold Mantis Enterprise, Suzhou.
Jeremy Tew
August 22nd, 2007
Shanghai
