Light of the Internet Expo Centre, continuity of the space and functions

The site is located in the northwest corner of the heart of Wuzhen. The entire site is surrounded by farm houses, tourism projects and the first stage project of the exhibition pavilion area. It is adjacent to the Wuzhen Xizha ancient building complex. In the process of regional urbanization development, buildings from the historical and modern district are intertwined. The use of land resources is relatively loose, showing complex diversity. The layout of the new venues needs to consider the continuity of the space and functions of the existing venues. As the core area of the summit, it also needs to consider the possibility that the entire area will be led by the world's leading Internet technology publishing activities.
In order to meet the functional requirements of the the Wolrd Internet Conference and future diversified operation requirements; the pavilion is divided into four exhibition halls from south to north. The space can be used separated or merged, so it is possible to be used in series at large exhibitions or it can be opened in parallel to accommodate various activities. Considering the space experience and applicability of the space of the independent exhibition hall, each section of the exhibition halls is high in the center and low along the edge. The string beams are placed in the middle of the exhibition hall to form the big open space for the special function requirement. At the same time, there are openings at the top to introduce the skylight to improve the space quality.
In between the main string beams, we creatively proposed to use “cantilever beam” to make the connection. This structural prototype is derived from the suspension structure. Different from the conventional suspension structure, through putting tension on the steel to get the maximal mechanical property, it saved a lot of time from the form finding process of the cable. We replaced the steel cable with I-beam to realize the complicated form. 230 catenary beams are unified into the circular segments with the same radius to greatly reduce fabrication difficulties and reduce the chance of machine errors.
The ridge string beam & inter-frame catenary beam composite structure has the ability to form a column-free 90 meters by 200 meters space. This is the original design, but in the later stages of the design process, the whole space is divided into four groups of juxtaposed exhibition spaces due to the use of the functional adjustments. After a comprehensive comparison of the cost, effect and construction convenience with portal steel frame, the catenary system is chose because it showed enough advantages.
In order to achieve rapid construction of the entire pavilion, the dynamic modular system and the logic of the full prefabrication are applied to the overall skin construction of the entire pavilion project. The prefabricated upper building structure itself used 8 herringbone columns, 4 string beams, 2 arc beams at the edge, and 230 catenary beams. It is gradually break into mathematical logic corresponding to the rationalized structural members.
The 20000-square-meter roof consists of 700,000 tiles. Therefore it is merely impossible to construct everything on site. The design uses prefabrication shift from traditional tile work into prefabricated installation unit. Every 18 tiles are combined into one installation unit and then installed onto the roof within only 5 minutes.
On the East Side of the Venue, a public park with 4 pavilions is designed to complete the overall landscape.
Water Pavilion, Moon Pavilion, Red Pavilion and Cloud Pavilion, the four exhibition halls jointly built not only a poet, but more importantly, the application scene of the experimental building robot was built to form the largest experimental robot project group in the world. For each pavilion design, while thinking about the artistic conception of the environment, they respectively play the specific process content of the experimental production of architectural robots.
The Water Pavilion locates on the east side of the main Conference Center in Wuzhen. Taking traditional red bricks as the fundamental material and utilizing the innovative robotic manufacturing process, Water Pavilion serves as a multi-function tourist’s service station within the expo park.
The fabrication and construction of the Moon Pavilion employs Robotic Timber Construction Technology for precise processing of all geometric components. Polycarbonate sheets are used for roof cladding to allow for natural sunlight, which is further filtered the softened by the sheets’ texture. The roof structure of the pavilion is a radial steel structure, and is supplemented with LED strip lights. During nighttime, the artificial light diffuses out through polycarbonate roof, casting a crystal clear glare around the pavilion, mimicking the moon on the ground.
As the most important landscape focal point as well as the theme building for the Intelligent Construction Park for the “Light of the Internet” Expo Center, the design of Red Pavilion finds its inspiration from the wavy terrain of the main conference venue. Traditional Red Brick are used throughout the construction of Red Pavilion, which follows the brick tradition in Wuzhen but also immediately sets out the difference from its surrounded blue brick buildings.
Cloud Pavilion, made out of 3D printed plastic components expands for 20 meters long and 15 meters wide while standing for a height of 6 meters. It is divided into three spatial volumes internally, including an indoor cafe and two semi-open platforms, forming three separate but connected umbrella structures.