KennaXu Gallery, deep connections between gallery and people
Design Firm: DA INTEGRATING LIMITED; Chief Designer: Chinman Ngai; Cooperator: Artist Enrico Bach, Yang Shu, Ma Shuqing
Renovation
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Completed
The project sits in a residential building constructed in the 1990s within an old communicty, where the gallery owner Kenna Xu spent his childhood. The old building carries his deep affection for Shenzhen, and also breeds his dream of establishing a contemporary art gallery that finds a foothold in the local area and pursues global visibility.
The design team carefully thought about the relationship between the gallery and the old residential building, and saw the possibility of establishing a deep connection between the gallery and people, nature and the city. Based on site conditions, the team created open spaces and optimized landscape view, in order to inject home-like comfort and intimacy into the artistic space and integrate artistic aesthetics into real life.
In order to create transparency, the designers carved out "frames" on facades to combine with all-glass partitions, which help introduce sunshine, trees, flowers and birdsong into the interior. In this way, the design realizes perfect integration of art and five-sensory experiences. The interior space is connected to the yard and outdoor scenery, hence bringing the gallery closer to the community and people.
Based on the idea of “installation space”, the designers created a transparent courtyard, which is surrounded by natural landscape. As the sun goes down, the glazing reflects splendid colors and mottled tree shadows, showing a marvelous artistic painting that keeps changing throughout the year.
The space is dominated by white hue, which produces a modern, simplistic spatial tone as well as an inclusive backdrop that reveals the authenticity of things. It can fully display the color, composition, aesthetics and thinking of exhibited paintings. The design incorporates a sense of "emptiness" to create a free and serene ambience, with a view to enabling harmonious interaction between light and shadow, nature and artworks, and thereby achieving the beauty of art.
The unique windows shake off traditional designs, and act as openings for conveying messages. Meanwhile, those structures bring in the daily chatter of residents, sounds of footsteps and birdsong from outdoor groves, which become background music for the art space. The gallery seems to grow here and closely integrates with the old community.
Through exploring the connection of different spaces and the relationship among structures, the designers conceived a series of interlinked, interweaving functional areas. The layout breaks the "flatness" of scenes, dissolves the residential atmosphere of the original space and turns it into a gallery space infused with freedom, openness and humanism.
Shenzhen
China
KennaXu
09/2019
223 sq. m
Chinman Ngai
DA INTEGRATING LIMITED
Zhang Chao, Kevin, Benmo Studio
Curriculum
The gallery sits in a residential building built in the 1990s, where the owner Kenna Xu spent his childhood. White hue set a simplistic tone in the overall space. Through exploring the connection of different spaces and the relationship among structures, the designers conceived a series of interlinked, interweaving functional areas. The layout breaks the “flatness” of scenes. The open landscape view blends the space with the outdoor yard and scenery. The carved-out “frames” on facades match with all-glass partitions, which help introduce nature into the interior and create an art space infused with freedom, openness and humanism.