Architects: HCCH Studio
Year: 2023
Photography: Qingyan Zhu
Design Team: Hao Chen, Chenchen Hu, Yuling Wang, Qi Zheng, Yida Hou
LDI: Shanghai Youwei Engineering Design Co.,Ltd.
City: Pudong
Country: China
Twisting Tower and Spiral Station, designed by HCCH Studio, are key structures within the Shanghai Lingang Ecological Restoration Project, located along the coastline. Completed in 2023, these structures merge ecological functionality with landmark status to highlight environmental issues. The Twisting Tower combines carbon flux monitoring and sea level alert systems, while Spiral Station provides offshore ecological monitoring. These installations promote environmental awareness through minimal formal manipulation and technical visual expression.
Twisting Tower and Spiral Station are part of the Shanghai Lingang Ecological Restoration Project, situated 10 kilometers apart along the coastline. They showcase infrastructure as landmarks, serving ecological purposes and attracting public attention to environmental issues through technical elements’ visual expression. The project explores economic and engaging solutions with minimal formal manipulation.
Twisting Tower combines carbon flux monitoring and sea level alert functions. The slender steel tower features multiple platforms for equipment, providing air quality monitoring, climate observation, bird watching, data collection, and storage. The sea level alert function is a concrete cylinder using top lighting to indicate ocean tides and issue storm surge warnings. Initially planned as separate structures, they were combined into a 20-meter tall tower, serving as a regional landmark.
Twisting motions at both ends of the tower imply dual functionality and facilitate hanging detection devices in various orientations. Vertical metal louvers enclose the main steel structure, creating an ambiguous sense of scale from a distance. The internal steel staircase is visible through the louver gaps upon closer inspection.
The tower’s footprint, a 3m x 2m rectangle, twists 25 degrees to a 2m x 2m plan. Four-meter-high LED light strips embedded on top louvers serve as sea level alerts. Carbon flux measurement devices are installed on two platforms at six and twelve meters high.
Spiral Station is an offshore ecological monitoring station located 200 meters from the shore, accessed via a 20-span bridge. It provides hydrology, meteorology, and water quality monitoring. The main station, within 11m x 11m dimensions, includes a bridge, collision protection piles, tidal observation wells, and water sampling holes.
The design shifts the typical concrete box massing to a cylinder with a spiral gesture, avoiding decorative components. An eight-meter diameter circular plan with vertical circulation wraps around its periphery. A two-meter wide slope spirals from ground level to the roof, resembling a winding ribbon. One end connects to land, and the other leads to the climate tower on an anti-collision pile. The station features an open plan for easy rooftop access.
Twisting Tower and Spiral Station transcend basic infrastructure paradigms by rethinking programs and taking minimal gestures, creating dual sculptures on the beach and sea.
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Project Location
Address: Nanhuixincheng Town, Pudong, Shanghai 201308, China
Location is for general reference and may represent a city or country, not necessarily a precise address.
