Japanese architecture firm clads art centre in porous aluminium panels

Kengo Kuma and Associates has built an art centre with an intricate aluminium-moulded facade at a former cotton mill in China, which has been converted into a shop and office complex.

Kengo Kuma's Japan-based firm converted the entire 10,440-square-metre mill to create the new retail, office and art centre called Wuxi Vanke, which is located near Taihu Lake on the outskirts of Shanghai.

The art centre occupies an extension to the old brick building. Its complex facade comprises hundreds of cast aluminium panels, which are arranged in an alternating pattern of solid and void to give the building a wavy outline.

The porous form of the metal panels is modelled on Taihu stone, a type of limestone with water-worn hollows and perforations common in the region. Each piece of aluminium was cast in a mould to achieve the same effect.

"We got an idea from the shape of Taihu stone that was at the heart of Taihu culture, made porous panels with aluminium casting, combined them to create an amoeba-shaped space, and inserted it to the rigid structure of brick," explained the studio. Gaps between panels allow natural light to filter through the glazed aluminium facades.

The Japanese firm also used a similar technique for a series of art galleries for the China Academy of Arts, by suspending tiles in a wire mesh to form the facades.