The National Maritime Museum of China is justified in its ‘landmark’ status…it is a remarkable building, borne of a remarkable process.
It is a project that’s totally at home on the global stage. It is testament to the commitment of our open-minded and collaborative client and to our team, whose talent and tenacity in equal measure ensured this building stayed true to its vision in every possible detail.
Brendan Gaffney, National Director for COX
In terms of scale alone the project is arresting – when compared with the size of the Sydney Opera House the NMMC is two and a half times larger in terms of both length and site area.
And the construction scale tells its own story.
The museum includes 55,000m² of aluminium façade and 3,500m² of glazed façade.
And the façade is 828mm thick – to accommodate the aluminium façade, the rain screen, the standing seam, insulation, the interior lining and any substructure within that.
Plus a staggering 17,000 tonnes of steel was used for the primary structure alone, not including the secondary structure.
The largest structural cantilever is al spectacular 42m in length.
One of the challenges we had was that because this building is curved there's no defined wall and ceiling. This was a challenge because building Codes in China refer to walls having B-grade fire rating and ceilings that should have a higher, A-grade rating. Because of the curvature it wasn’t possible to define where the walls stopped and the ceiling started, so everything had to be the highest grade in fire rating.
Brendan Gaffney, National Director for COX
Technology was to the fore when creating the giant museum/landmark.
Revit, Rhino and BIM played a huge role in coordinating and delivering this project. It resulted in the biggest digital model Cox Architecture has ever worked with.
The design solution includes giant seismic portals, each resting on massive ball joints that are designed to move when there’s seismic disruption in the landscape.
There is also siphonic drainage built literally into the ‘skin’ of the building. This was difficult to achieve because of the museum’s organic form. The out-of-sight drainage captures grey water for future use on site over the dry months.
The vast roof is arrayed with high efficiency solar panels, creating a ‘solar farm’. This, in addition to the thermal underground heating, warms the building during the harsh Tianjin winter and on cooler days.
Credit list
Client
National Maritime Museum Preparatory Office Chinese Government and Tianjin Municipality
Local design institute partner:
Tianjin Architecture and Design Institute (TADI)
World Architecture Festival Future Project of the Year; World Architecture Festival Future Cultural Project of the Year Award; World Architecture Festival Competition Project of the Year Award
Architect
Cox Architecture
Key consultants
Arup, Lord Cultural Resources, Urbantect
05 Apr, 2020