In the Shanghai suburb of Luojing,Baoshan Distrcit, Kokaistudios has taken the first step in transforming a 450,000sqm site once known for steel production into a visionary eco-industrial park. This project will be Baowu’s new waste-to-energy power plant. Ahead of construction, Kokaistudios converted one of the site’s few remaining factory buildings into an Exhibition Center, and symbolic gateway to this landmark scheme.

In the Shanghai suburb of Luojing,Baoshan Distrcit, Kokaistudios has taken the first step in transforming...

Designed with the purpose of exhibiting models, drawings, and plans outlining the wider development, the Exhibition Center will welcome an audience of developers, clients, and prospective tenants of the broader scheme. The facility will also play an important educational role through hosting students studying green energy strategies.

Designed with the purpose of exhibiting models, drawings, and plans outlining the wider development,...

Specifically, the firm settled on a lightweight approach: a fully independent polycarbonate envelope positioned within the perimeter of the original structure. The resulting aesthetic creates a clear relationship and dialogue between historical and contemporary, opacity and transparency, hot and cool.

Specifically, the firm settled on a lightweight approach: a fully independent polycarbonate envelope...

The material’s translucency affords plentiful natural light inside the space, allowing visitors a very literal glimpse into this landmark project. By night, light from inside the space lends the building an intriguing glow.

The material’s translucency affords plentiful natural light inside the space, allowing visitors a very...

Inside, materials are kept similarly light and in keeping with the project’s broader ecological focus, fully recyclable. Throughout, cooler tones contrast with the structure’s former associations of blasting furnaces. An exception is the exhibition hall, where natural elements including wood veneer partitions connect to the parkland beyond.

Inside, materials are kept similarly light and in keeping with the project’s broader ecological focus,...

The established dialogue between the structure’s industrial past and its contemporary ecological context extends beyond its perimeter. Existing trees surrounding the building have been kept, creating an overall effect of the new Exhibition Center merging into the landscape beyond.

The established dialogue between the structure’s industrial past and its contemporary ecological context...