SINO-DANISH CENTRE

Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research.

The House of the Danish Industry Foundation should serve as a meeting place between Denmark and China in Beijing.

The objective of the proposal was to create a well functioning and attractive building that would be a landmark for the campus at the same time promoting Danish architecture through design form, thoughtful building functionality and flexibility, sustainability and choice of materials.

The new Sino-Danish Centre (SDC) is to be a unique building but at the same time fully integrated into the GUCAS’ Yanqihu Campus. The design follows the overall master plan of the campus with its linear orientation on the site, the choice of red brick as a primary building material and visual connections to the context.

The issue of sustainability plays a key role in the design of the new SDC. First, the building has been developed as a compact and simple geometric form, maximizing the natural daylight into the building. A flexible façade system has been developed according to the required daylight factors of each function in the house.

In order to provide an optimum indoor climate for students, staff and visitors, a robust brick “shell” covers what is mostly a concrete and glass structure. The brick shell acts as the second layer of the double skin façade and works mainly as an effective sun shading element keeping the building core cool and shaded during the hot summer days. During the cold winter months the brick climate screen provides a great deal of thermal energy storage to keep the building warm.The open structure of the brick shell allows the building to naturally ventilate.

Parts of the roof area will be covered by solar panels. Excess energy from the solar panels can be stored for reuse or sold back to the local energy grid. Local materials will be used in the interior for floors, ceilings and wall surfaces.