Wukesong Ice Sports Center / BIAD-ZXD ARCHITECTS

Wukesong Ice Sports Center / BIAD-ZXD ARCHITECTS

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Text description provided by the architects. Wukesong Ice Sports Center is the ice hockey training facility for the 2022 Winter Olympics. It is located at the southeast corner of Wukesong Sports Complex, just off Changan Street. The project is symmetrical with the basketball court to the west.

The project consists of two levels above ground and two levels underground. The underground functions are designed as the ice arena with a capacity of 1900 spectators and the related functions surrounding the arena, and other spaces are placed underground for sports culture and a capacity of 900 spectators. Wukesong Ice Sports Center has been awarded China Green Building three stars. The building is the largest ultra-low-energy stadium in China.

Wukesong Ice Sports Center plays an important role in reflecting the commemorative and symbolic significance of the Olympic Games due to its special location and as one of the few newly constructed stadiums for the event. During the event, the project serves as an ice hockey training center. After the games, it will become one of the most prominent Ices & Snow themed sports buildings, which would arouse the interest of citizens all over the city to participate in winter sports. We therefore believe that the design should create a connection through symbols with the world of ice cream. and snow, and gather emotional significance and energy into a passion.

Wukesong Ice Sports Center looks like floating ice flowers that aggregate and form the pattern of ice and snow. The design aims to link the figurative sign and the abstract architectural structure to be intertwined in perception, which awakens the meaning of symbols in the opaque transparency of a riddle, and arouses people’s passion for the Winter Olympics, as well as enthusiasm and expectation for winter sports.

The pattern with 45 degree rotated intersection, grid-wall system, envelops the building and renders visual effect like ice cracks and spatial experience with layers. The repeated patterns should conceal the massing of this block and make the profile of the building lighter and more implicit. A corridor named the Winter Olympics Corridor between the gridded wall and the main facade becomes a ceremonial and commemorative space. When the sun penetrates through the pattern, a painting of lights and shadows with the contrast between full and empty is projected on the floor and on the facade, which presents the spatial quality of the ice flowers sign.

The wall system with a 45 degree turned intersection maintains consistency with the truss and the columns sloping from outside to inside, which shows a rigorous logic and structural aesthetic. Visitors could feel the sensation of ice and snow. The mechanics of the lattice structure blending the figurative pattern of the ice flowers counteracts the figurative meaning of the ice flowers. In the partly hidden and partly visible state between the sign of the ice flowers and the lattice structure, “An opaque transparency of an enigma” is completed, thus evoking symbolism.

In order to perceive the rich and vivid symbolic meaning, we decrease the number of aluminum patterns, and the colors on the elevations emphasize the vibrant and enthusiastic atmosphere of the stadium. The lights paint a poetic picture of the world of ice and snow.