project profile


An abandoned brick kiln served as the inspiration for Interval Architects’ design for a new botanic art centre that aims to connect the past with the present.


Tower of Bricks


LOCATED between Hengshui wetland park and the city of Hengshui in Hebei Province, China, the abandoned Hoffman brick kiln was formerly a place where factories used to drain their sewage water. As the only building on wetland, the brick kiln and its chimney were highly visible on the landscape. However, the Hoffman kiln was gradually abandoned due to the national policy that banned the burning of bricks out of clay as an environmental protection measure and was eventually demolished. With the new governmental plan to


convert the wetland into a botanic park, the project called for the design of a botanic art centre on the site of the former kiln. We decided to honour the memory and history of the demolished kiln in the new architecture of the art centre, which showcases plants, potteries and floral art. With the intention to connect to the


spatial history of the place, the new botanic art centre has a massing and spatial composition that references to the old kiln but programmed with contemporary functions and experience. In doing so, the past and the future of the site are conceptually connected. The observation tower preserves the


symbol and memory of the former chimney 30 leisuredab.co.uk


and the accessibility of the tower allows people to “climb up the chimney”. While the old kiln was an industrial


building with no public access, the new botanic art centre opens to the public as a cultural and exhibition architecture. The spatial composition of the botanic art centre conceptually refers to the old Hoffman kiln with a looped and vaulted space surrounding a central courtyard. Along the vaulted arcade, several courtyards are proposed and break the spatial continuity of the space, creating a blurred boundary between landscape and architecture, between interior and exterior, while also connects the inner central courtyard with the bigger environment. The roof garden of the podium also


opens up the building and creates a unique viewing experience. Courtyards are also proposed in between restaurants and a kitchen at the northern and southern end of the building and allow natural light into the dinning space. As opposed to a continuous vault in a


Hoffman kiln, the arcade of the botanic art centre is composed of a series of vaults which shows a visual and experiential progression of spaces in relation with light. The sequential setting of vaults defines


separate but inter-connected galleries that house exhibitions and records the relationship between space, light and shadow. Every traditional kiln has a chimney. The


proposition of an observation tower is reminiscent of the chimney and allows people to access the “chimney” with its four viewing platforms at different altitudes, which offer different views and experiences of the botanic park. Bricks were used as the main materials


throughout the structure. Various kind of stacking patterns of bricks are used on the facade to generate translucency, which breaks the solidity and heaviness of brick wall, allows different light and shadow effects and promotes the sense of openness. The observation tower is clad with bricks stacked more porously to admit light and weaken the heaviness of the tower. While the design of the Tower of Bricks


has a reference to a traditional kiln, the new architecture holds a contemporary position in terms of the idea of openness connectivity to the environment and user experience. It emotionally extends local people’s memory of the existence of a kiln. It is an architecture that connects history with future.


www.interval-architects.com


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