Pingshan Performing Arts Center, Shenzhen’s most awaited cultural venue, is nearing completion. Scheduled to open at the end of this year, this was the first theater planned for the city’s newly-developed Pingshan area in 2015, noted ArchDaily.OPEN Architecture has integrated different types of functional spaces within the center to enhance the engagement between the architecture and the public. Though the structure has a simple cubic volume-like appearance, it is designed to “challenge the common architectural practices.” The architects wanted to break away from the monotonous spaces that have come to characterize the cities of market-driven China, where buildings are assigned a single function and, as stated by Open Architecture, the buildings have “exaggerated formal appearances… far detached from the public and the urban life.”The 23,542 square meters of the center’s space houses two expansive outdoor plazas, a 1,200-seat opera house, a black-box theater, educational facilities, rehearsal rooms, cafe’s and restaurants. “The exterior is punctuated with rectangular windows and extruded volumes to introduce light and air in these peripheral spaces. Concerning the building tectonics, the facade is engineered with perforated, V-section aluminum panels and colored aluminum cladding. The combination of the two metallic textures further enhances solar protection and ventilation qualities of the architecture,” noted ArchDaily.The structure is cladded in precision-engineered aluminum panels, which marks the completion of the building’s envelope.The project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2018.http://www.blouinartinfo.com/                                                              Founder: Louise Blouin   Read more