DnA_ Design and Architecture designed a Water Conservancy Centre in Songyang County, in China.
– text by the authors

Songyin River is the most important water resource in Songyang County. It has a long history of water conservancy, with water facilities spreading in the region to eliminate farmland drought and flood, and ensure the demand for agricultural irrigation, water transport, fishery, grain production and daily water consumption of local residents.

The Water Conservancy Center, located in the southwest of Baisha lake dam and power station out of county urban center, was originally planned as county water facilities management center, including monitoring hall, water conservancy department office, canteen, archives, flood control materials warehouse, etc.

In 2016, to facilitate with the development of Songyin River Scenic District, the project was reprogrammed into a hydrological park to provide cultural and leisure services for Songyin River Green Belt.

The building programs was then readjusted by opening up the original internal functions of monitoring hall, archive and canteen to public.

The archive can enlarge into an exhibition hall of local conservancy history. The monitoring center will be open by appointment to visitors and local schools as part of education program. The canteen will provide food & beverage and also function as multi-media space for teenagers.

Building volumes are differentiated by program.

The public programs are unfolded into arc volumes similar to conservancy facilities, and service blocks are linear shapes.

The arc building envelop of public programs are further transformed into amphitheaters to provide surfaces for outdoor activities, and walkways to the roof gardens and viewing terraces. This brings a spatial identity to the interior, in terms of spatial form, sequence, enclosure, and natural lighting, etc.
The interior and exterior of the volume are further interacted into a structure to accommodate both indoor programmatic space and outdoor activity surfaces.

The cluster of building volumes intersects with the water park on ground level to create a series of water courtyards. Passages on water surface adjusting to the topography as either micro dams or covered bridges will reproduce the spatial experience of various elements of Songyang water conservancy.

As one of the many infrastructure projects in Songyang County that are spreading along the outskirt of its urban center and mountain area, the Water Conservancy Center and Water Park could provide a connecting and interacting platform between urban center & rural villages.

Plans
    

Facts & Credits
Project title   Water Conservancy Centre
Location    Baisha Lake Power Station, Hengshan Mountain, Songyang, China
Program    Water managinging facilities / Exhibition/ Leisure
Client   River Dam, Dykes and Reservoir Management Department of Songyang County
Architecture     DnA_ Design and Architecture
Principle Architect    Xu Tiantian
Lighting Design   Zhang Xin Studio, Architecture Department of Tsinghua University
Gross Floor Area   6746 m2
Building Foot Print   3373 m2
Completion    2018
Photographer  Wang Ziling, Han Dan


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