The Folium

The Folium

An International Concept Design Competition by QUAD studio in 2018 organized by undisclosed developer in Zhuhai to design an Exhibition Pavilion for their development on their New Future Metropolis.

The Setting - Located Zhuhai, China and one of the core cities in the Pearl River Delta. The Zhuhai Gallery pavilion is design to showcase the future developments of their Few Future Metropolis.

A report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Science in 2014, the city of Zhuhai is the most liveable city in China. Surrounded by landscape, Zhuhai has a reputation of being a garden city and having a quality of life.

Design Concept - The design evolved from a key primary objective, to bring the vision of this New Metropolis to the people and to let everyone experience a taste of what the future brings to the district as well as the city of Zhuhai. During the design process, many Cultural Icons were explored. With this option, we were inspired by the idea of creating a ‘garden city’.

Opportunity to create a Pavilion that truly showcase Zhuhai as a garden city - When it come the design of the Zhuhai Gallery Pavilion, it is only appropriate to showcase the “Garden City” within this new modern metropolis by creating an iconic public garden in the heart of the New Future Metropolis.

The Folium - By creating an iconic vision of a ‘Garden City’, we develop a simple leaf like structure that we call ‘The Folium’ that represents a quality of life by enhancing greenery and flora in a single architectural vision.
The pavilion structure resembles that of two simple leaves with laminar structure and pinnate venation. Using ETFE, the translucent roof membrane shows off the workings of the pavilion.
One can enter the pavilion from the northern from the park and southern entrances from the main road and pier. The entrances brings the visitor into the heart of the pavilion where they can have time to choose what they want to experience. The functions of the pavilion are logistically separated with active zones a ground level, semi active zones on level 1 and passive zones on level 2.

The Pavilion after the exhibition - Although the concept of the garden city can be replicated within the confines of the Pavilion. However, if had an opportunity to create a world class statement, we want to make use of the adjacent parkland transforming the park into a purpose designed garden city for Zhuhai.
After the exhibition. The gallery has the opportunity for another life as a botanical garden and a gateway to the parkland that makes the pavilion a global attraction. The botanical garden can show off different species of plants from all around the Pearl River Delta in a climate controlled environment as well as wildlife like birds and fishes.