Sugar Hall / guò bàn er

Sugar Hall / guò bàn er

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Text description provided by the architects. The 500-square-meter former storage hall for granulated sugar, now dubbed “Bonbon Town,” is located on the former Yu Lan Sugar Factory grounds in an up-and-coming industrial district of Zhangzhou, China. Tasked with transforming the storage building with little to no daylight into an event venue with sufficient sunlight, the architects placed a series of curated white volumes into the space, functioning as daylight cannons while providing room to fulfill the new program requirements.

Simple white volumes work in juxtaposition with the existing roof trusses. The new cubature intentionally collides and intersects with the existing structure, and in other cases, they respect the setting out of the original roof structure. A newly inserted bridge that houses office space spans across the hall, zoning the remaining area into event space, a café, and a bistro area. A 10-meter long bar block wrapped in corrugated stainless steel welcomes guests to the café. On level 02, above the bar and kitchen area, a lush indoor garden lounge provides excellent views into the main space. Tucked behind the curved wall on level 02 is a tea room for the client’s private use. The narrow horizontal opening in the tea room wall provides discrete views into the main hall. Behind the curved wall, daylight enters through three roof skylights washing down a conical wall. The outer side of the curved wall serves as a canvas for media projections.

guò bàn er developed a tailored passive cooling strategy for the ample main space without using conventional air conditioning to address Zhangzhou’s hot and humid summers. New large-scale windows modeled after the original timber pivot windows bring a new sense of permeability to the building and allow natural ventilation. Large fan units placed at the top of the skylights constantly extract hot air creating a low-velocity airflow within the facility, which provides a natural cooling effect. Additional ceiling fans support the constant flow of air. Several long vertical slot openings inserted into the existing brick walls provide continuous ventilation in case the oversized windows have to stay closed on a rainy day.

The “Bonbon Town” hall operates as a single-use venue without partition walls or shared spaces giving private parties exclusive, uninterrupted focus and attention. It provides a mix of blank canvas venue zones and individualized gathering spaces. Memorable and unique breaks during all-day events take center stage to become picture-taking opportunities and social media-worthy moments. 

Preservation of the existing charm of the building rather than restoration was vital to the concept of inserting new building volumes which clearly distinguish themselves while adding spatial variations to the former storage hall.