Diamonds from the Rough
Vanke Co., Ltd, City Lights Exhibition Hall
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Taihu, China | 9000 SF
![Close up of canopy](https://www.gbbn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/微信图片_20190716111603-1220x585-1.jpg)
With a couple simple design moves, a nondescript retail center on the outskirts of Beijing is transformed into a compelling, new space. Serving the metropolis’s quickly-growing housing market, the City Lights Exhibition Hall hosts a full scale, model unit and lifestyle spaces to give prospective apartment buyers a taste of the sophistication and elegance they can expect from Vanke’s newest residential high-rise.
![Before versus after of the building](https://www.gbbn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/BeforeAfter-1220x564-1.gif)
Hidden below the drab exterior of an existing retail store, the building’s crystalline form was waiting to be discovered. Previously broken up by large, bi-colored glass panels and a dark, metal grid on its front, this renovation stripped the building down to its structure, recladding it in a more subtle combination of transparent and reflective glass, and emphasized its vertical seams to more clearly express the building’s dynamic volume.
![Diagram of canopy's geometry](https://www.gbbn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/分析图更新-06-768x471-1.jpg)
![View of building and canopy](https://www.gbbn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/微信图片_20190716111532-768x471-1.jpg)
This dynamism is amplified by a large stainless steel canopy, which projects 13 feet over the glass walls of the first floor, its wavering surface softly reflecting its surroundings. Married to the water-effect of the canopy’s rippled surface, a script was used to punch a computer-generated pattern of holes through this material, enriching its texture during the day and making it a surface of shimmering light at night.
![Detail image of the holes punch into the canopy material](https://www.gbbn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/06553b7dc3cb6e90135a96262934673-1220x564-1.jpg)
While unifying the look of the building, the canopy also inspired a dynamically-graded landscape design, which carved out sharply-angled planes and a stepped water feature to echo the building’s movement.
![Night time view of landscape design](https://www.gbbn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/12b95ad8a88daae76593e7d4a861578-1220x564px-1.jpg)