Renewal of the Citang Street, Chengdu

The Citang Street serves is the cradle of Chengdu’s emerging culture and commerce, featuring a diverse architectural landscape that spans over a century. This area is home to numerous cultural heritage sites and historical structures, alongside buildings erected at the close of the previous century.

The object of the project is to enhance the traditional urban spatial configuration of the street, facilitating a connection between the street and the nearby People’s Park, and introducing green scenery of the park. Efforts were made to restore historical buildings and repurpose them, creating a green sky street and establishing a three-dimensional community. Furthermore, a new neighborhood art gallery was constructed, and innovative cultural and commercial enterprises were introduced to invigorate the artistic spirit of this century-old area.

Currently, the Citang Street and People’s Park lack direct communication, and the narrow street confines hinder commercial development. By expanding the pedestrian area of the street and dismantling the park’s boundary wall, the design fostered spatial integration between the park and the neighborhood.

The design approach for historical buildings underlines the restoration of their original appearance, along with the preservation of the original streets and lanes. Modern buildings were subjected to moderate renovations, while ancient structures were repaired in line with the principle of maintaining their original state, in order to showcase the historical relics with minimal intervention. This strategy aims to honor the historical significance of the area and facilitate its revitalization through a certain extent of renovations, encouraging more citizens and tourists to return to the urban area and take delight in walking around the neighborhood.

The northwest corner of Citang Street was transformed to a gallery, infusing the area with new artistic vitality. The gallery is required to harmonize the elegance of the street and the modern sense of Shudu Avenue. With the principal axial direction of the historical buildings intercepted, the gallery is divided into five roof planes of varying sizes. By keeping a face width of 8-10 meters for each form, the design not only complements the scale of the street and ancient structures, but also places forms within the triangular land plot. The Neighborhood Art Gallery is constructed from ceramic plates and tiles resembling the black brick color textures. The roofing is constructed from small black tiles as a sign of showing respect for the tradition.

The renovation of the North Building was designed to be ecologically sustainable, maintaining the original building structure and profile, and implementing an envelope program in line with the latest energy efficiency and green building standards. The design intentionally enhances the southwestern shading to reduce energy consumption for the enduring operation of the building. The introduction of new hotel, cultural and creative and office businesses aims to avail the unused building for an eco-friendly and economical new use.

The design and construction process of the street and the art gallery were conducted with careful consideration of the necessity to reduce the effects on the existing arbor trees and historical buildings. Countermeasures were implemented to prevent harm to the adjacent buttonwood trees during the basement construction phase. The new art gallery features a steel framework designed to lessen the environmental and community disruption caused by the construction process.