■ مرکز عروسی چین بخش معماری

Nanshan Wedding Center / UrbanusArchitects: Urbanus

Location: Nanshan Distrit, Shenzhen, China

Design Director: Meng Yan, Zhu Jialin 

Project Director: Zhang Zhen, Fu Zhuoheng, Wei Zhijiao

Architecture Designers: Wang Jun, Yin Yujun, Hu Zhigao，Li Qiang, Zhang Xinfeng 

Landscape Designers: Liao Zhixiong, Lin Ting, Yu Xiaolan, Liu Jie

Collaborator: Guoqun Studio (Interior Design); Shenzhen Keyuan Construction Group co.,Ltd (Curtain wall Design)

Client: Construction Bureau of Nanshan District

Completion: 2011

Site Area: 3,002.5 sqm

Floor Area: 977.5 sqm

Photographs: Meng Yan, Wu Qiwei
In China, the image of marriage registration office is usually closely
associated with government institutes. Moreover, registry office, as a
part of the Civil Affairs Department, also connects marriage with the
complicated and boring bureaucracy. Due to such bureaucratization of the
process of marriage, the supposedly romantic and exciting moment of
marriage registration turns into mechanized experience and formalism.
Nanshan Wedding Center is a new architectural typology: on the one hand,
the architects hope to bring a new identity to the process of marriage
registration; and on the other hand, it provides different types of
public space for other users from the city. Furthermore, it redefines
the identity and the monumentality of government building and shortens
the distance between the citizens and the governors.
The design strategy is to accommodate a modern wedding center with well
embedded programs. The site of the project locates in the Northeastern
corner of Lijing Park in Nanshan District, with the size of about 100
meters long and 25 meters wide. The main building is at the north side
of the site, close to the street corner. A small pavilion at the south
side is connected with the main building by two bridges floating on a
reflecting pool. This arrangement not only reveals the ceremonial sense
of wedding, and also indicates the main building as a symbolic urban
landmark.
The key idea of this design is to exemplify the experience of one
circulating in the building. A continuous spiral path connects facets of
the experience in a sequential way: arriving, approaching to the
wedding hall with the focus of relatives, photo taking, waiting,
registering, climbing, overlooking, issuing, descending slope, passing
the water pool, and reuniting with relatives. The building is
specifically designed to create such memory.
The approach explores how to situate a specific government building in
the existing urban fabric of residential communities. Small spaces are
divided from the larger volume of the building to achieve relative
privacy. The building’s skin is separated into a two-layer structure,
with the first layer using floral mesh aluminum to reveal the interior,
and the second layer using glass walls to provide a weatherproof
structure. The interior space and the outside facade remain white in
order to show the spiritual atmosphere of marriage registration.