We love the warmth of wood and our biophilic attraction to it. But the best thing about wood is that when used in the construction of buildings, it has far lower upfront carbon emission than concrete or steel. There have been some marvelous long-span wood structures built in China, such as Structurecraft’s Taiyuan Botanical Garden Domes, so the new Yangliping Performing Arts Center in Dali, China, looked fascinating in the V2com release.
The center, designed by Studio Zhu-Pei, is not your usual black box of a theater. Instead, it is a mix of indoor and outdoor spaces designed to “subvert people’s perception of theater and create a new theater concept and new experiences.”
The architects tell ArchDaily: “The far-reaching and horizontally extended roof is like a big canopy. While resisting ultraviolet rays, it also shapes shadows and provides a comfortable environment for people to shade and avoid rain.”
Engineers can do extraordinary things with wood these days, with parametric design and sophisticated fasteners. All the photos of the Yangliping Performing Arts Center focus on the wood structure that is the underside of that giant slate-covered roof—it is very dramatic. I spent some time trying to figure out how it all worked together as a truss to hold up the roof.
The drawings show some kind of trusses but they certainly didn’t look like the photos.
After downloading some huge TIFF files and zooming in, it becomes clear that the wood is completely decorative, and is hanging below what appears to be a steel roof structure.
Steel buildings often have wood ceilings, but this one is unusual in that so much wood is just hanging there. One hopes that it is treated for fire resistance or that there are sprinklers, because otherwise, with so much surface area, it looks like the wood in my fireplace before I light it. Or maybe, it looks like a bunch of pickup sticks.
There is much to admire here in terms of innovative theater design. As the architect notes:
There is also no question, the giant roof is dramatic and the centerpiece of the whole project. The wood lattice underneath the roof completely changes the feel of it, adding tremendous warmth and character. The wood dominates the visual identity of the spaces under it, yet the architects never mention it, other than talking of the building as “another in-depth experimental work on the design philosophy of “Architecture of Nature.”
But I keep thinking that it was such a shame that the use of wood didn’t go beyond the decorative. I am reminded of the Metropol Parasol in Seville that served a similar function, that was a demonstration of pushing the limits of wood as a structural material. It is a missed opportunity.
