This office building in Shanghai punctuated by rectangular apertures is a renovation by Chinese firm
NHDRO.
The existing building is situated in the former Shanghai French
Concession, and original features such as timber joists and structural
walls have been left exposed.
The first of five storeys is a shop for retailer
Design Republic while the floors above form offices for Design Republic and NHDRO themselves.
Externally the ground floor is wrapped in timbers above which the building is rendered black.
The interior is a mixture of whitewashed walls, glass partitions and
rooms entirely finished in wood, while all five stories are connected
by a void.
Here’s some more from the architects:
The concept of the “Black Box” is the guiding concept behind the
architecture–modeled after the “black box” flight data recorder, it is
used symbolically to represent the “storage” of conversation, ideas,
thinking and research in the creative studio office.
The black box also serves the function of protecting that recording
in the event of a crash, fire or tragedy, analogous to the role of a
design office servicing as a container of its intellectual production
and protection from outside damage.
The black box offers poignant, relevant and passionate design ideas
with meaning and purpose to clients who may have had to face design
tragedies in their lives.
The ground floor in the form of a retail store displays some of
these designed objects produced in the offices above, rendering it a
window into the contents of the black box.
The Black Box is a five-story office building located in the former
French Concession, which also includes a street-level storefront space.
On the ground level, two wooden facades make up the base of the
building, one comprising the new Design Republic store and the other
leading up to the Design Republic and NHDRO offices.
The gallery and store on the ground level then becomes an extension of the street.
Above this glass and wooden exterior, a four-story dark façade is
extruded and “cut” to reveal windows into the building.
Within the Design Republic space, the wooden box is pierced to reveal white boxes that frame the main display area.
Private offices are contained within glass walls, just like within the original Design Republic office on the Bund.
The upper two stories will comprise the NHDRO space, which is
connected vertically with openings and horizontally with a bridge.
The conference room consists of two stacked boxes, a wooden box atop
a white box. The room is visible from the upper level through an
opening alongside the bridge.
from archdaily
