Vanke Future Town: A Tribute to Traditional Chinese Craftsmanship

Fan Jiujiang's Innovative Architectural Design Wins Prestigious A' Design Award

The project, located by the Yunlong Lake in Xuzhou, spans over a million square metres and is set to become a prominent community with abundant landscape resources. The demonstration area, the first set of architectures to grace the land, sets the tone for the entire ongoing project. The sales exhibition centre, designed to reflect the vast scale of Future Town and the geographical structure of the city, will later be converted into a community centre.

Fan Jiujiang's design inspiration came from Chinese traditional bridges. After studying these structures and hand modelling their long span structure constructed of short timbers, Jiujiang applied its structural beauty to the project. The bridge structure is introduced into the large scale exhibition space as an expressive element, demonstrating Vanke's technical strength and value.

The design's unique properties lie in its layout and use of space. Small spaces for the entrance hall, screening rooms, separate meeting rooms and rear services are compressed into the east wing, ensuring a single piece of large scale space for exhibition in the main building. This layout grants the main building an open floor plan to achieve the multiple functions required for exhibitions and as a community centre.

The project uses 600mmx200mm glued laminated timbers with different lengths as basic components. Steel tubes replace the part that works as a horizontal fulcrum between the upper and lower timbers in the original bridge structure. This approach establishes a system of continuous triangles and inverted triangles, which slopes rather gently compared to the original.

The design faced challenges in recreating the spatial impression and ensuring the authenticity of the structure. The force bearing structure it forms with a group of pillars is still not able to resist lateral force when being up in mid air. Despite these challenges, the project was completed within a short span of 7 months, endowing a visual sensation of floating to the space.

The Vanke Future Town project is a testament to Fan Jiujiang's innovative architectural design and a tribute to traditional Chinese craftsmanship. It stands as a shining example of blending traditional elements with modern design, earning it the prestigious Golden A' Design Award in 2018.