The Steel Structure of the Year is one of the most important Finnish architecture awards. The award goes to an architecturally high-level construction project that cleverly utilizes both steel and other metals during the construction phase.
The independent award committee selected the Strait Culture and Art Center designed by PES Architects to Fuzhou, China, representing the export of Finnish design know-how, as the winner of the 2020 Steel Structure Award from among the candidates proposed to the Steel Structure Association. In the 2020 Steel Structure, the steel structures of the most important architectural elements, the curved main facades and the related gallery spaces, were designed by Vahanen Suunnittelpalvelut Oy as a sub-consultant of PES-Arkitehtie.
With about eight million inhabitants, Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian province and a fast-growing metropolis. In 2013, the city of Fuzhou organized an international invitational competition for the construction of a new culture and art center, the Strait Culture and Art Center, to strengthen the cultural image of the city and the developing Mawei New Town area. PES-Arkitehdit won the competition and started the work leading to the implementation in 2014 Pekka Salminen acting as chief designer and Martin Lukasczyk as a project architect. At Vahanen Suunnittelpalvelut Oy, the key role in planning has been DI, senior advisor Matti Haaramo.
The steel structures of the most important elements of the architecture, the curved main facades and the associated gallery spaces, were clearly the most important contribution of Finnish special design in the demanding project. These structures, which used steel insightfully, had a significant impact on the success of the architecture and, naturally, also on the fact that Fuzhou's Strait Culture and Art Center was awarded the Steel Structure of the Year 2020.
The goal of PES Architects in the Fuzhou competition was to create a new kind of cultural shopping center that includes various cultural and other leisure activities as well as commercial services. The central common lobby is also open during the day not only for cultural tourists but also for e.g. for senior citizens, schoolchildren and families with children. The 50-meter-wide Liangcuo Flood River runs through the plot of land along the Minjiang River in Mawei New Town, Fuzhou. PES Architects' competition proposal was based on partially covering the floodplain and building on top of it.
Dividing a large cultural center into smaller units creates human-scale outdoor spaces. Five different cultural buildings are united in the lobby, from where you can go to the different buildings through gallery spaces that curve inside. The high glass walls of these spaces are shaded by a double facade made of ceramic profiles. The metaphor of white facades meeting the shapes of curved sails has been the Chinese explorer Zhen He. He led his huge fleet from Fuzhou on expeditions to Africa a hundred years before the voyages of Columbus on his more than one hundred meter long wooden admiral ship. Along that journey, the Silk Road of the seas was also formed, along which e.g. ceramics came to Europe.
The geometry of the cultural center's facades consists of ground level and eaves arches, the surface between which is curved in two directions. The round steel columns supporting the main facades and the roofs of the curved gallery spaces behind them follow this geometry. The distance between the pillars at floor level is 3,6 meters, but the distance increases upwards and is almost five meters at a height of 18-28 meters. The clear visible height of these non-vertical columns varies depending on the building and location.
The glass facade, which follows the same geometry, is 20 cm from the outer surface of the pillars. The glass facade, as well as the secondary steel structure of the curved ceramic facade 80 cm outside it, is supported diagonally from the main pillars with "steel arms". Although the distance between the main pillars increases upwards, a computer model has found a geometry in which the steel structure supporting the ceramic outer facade surface enables the different-shaped double facades of all five buildings using only one 175 cm long ceramic rod-like element. There are a total of 42.250 ceramic elements in the "facade curtain".
In addition to the winner, the award committee decided to award an honorable mention to the Kuusijärvi bridge, which is connected to the Sipoonkorvi National Park in Vantaa. The bridge designed by WSP Finland connects Vanta Porvoontie in Vantaa, crossing the Kuusijärvi outdoor recreation area and Sipoonkorvi. The bridge is located between two steep rock slopes at a height of about 20 meters above Vanhan Porvoontie. The type of bridge made of Cor-Ten steel is a steel continuous girder bridge. The aesthetics of the bridge have been influenced by the valuable natural environment. The combination of four steel pillars supporting the bridge can be seen as tree trunks leaning against each other. In addition, the railings are decorated with flame-cut animal and plant motifs depicting the species of the area.
The winner of the Steel Structure of the Year award is chosen annually by an independent award committee. This year, the chairman of the award committee has been the architect SAFA, who won the Steel Structure of the Year award in 2019, from the design group of the Olympic Stadium Mikko Summanen Architect office K2S Oy.
More information on the matter is provided by:
- secretary of the award committee, CEO of Teräsrakenneyhdistys ry Timo Koivisto, tel. 050 408 1163 or timo.koivisto@tryry.fi
- chairman of the award committee, architect SAFA Mikko Summanen, Arkkitehtoimisto K2S Oy, tel. 040 762 5265 or mikko.summanen@k2s.fi