Wuhan Joy City represents the “beating heart” of Guanggu and serves as a fresh landmark lighting up the Wuhan Tech district. After Joy City in Hangzhou, this is the second Joy City series project designed by Benoy. Since the competition win in 2017 and official project launch in 2018, this is the culmination of four years of hard work by all teams involved.
Comprising a total building volume of around 450,000 m², Wuhan Joy City includes a six-storey Joy City commercial building of 136,000 m² and two office buildings with a total floor area of 114,000 m². The project has a target clientèle of young, emerging middle-class elites aged 18 – 35 and hopes to tap into the industries and firms located in Guanggu and the surrounding areas. By combining Joy City’s focus on young consumers, fashion, trends and modern tastes with the characteristics of consumers in Guanggu, the project aims to provide a multi-functional complex that caters to the entertainment, technology and social needs of this target demographic.
The project is located in Guanggu New Area in Wuhan, a high-tech industrial zone well-known throughout China. The name “Guanggu” is formed of the characters “Guang”, meaning light, and “Gu”, meaning valley. Together they form the name “Valley of Light”, symbolising the local core industry of optoelectronics and the area’s reputation as a technology hub. Playing on the “Valley of Light” theme, Wuhan Joy City adopts the design concept of “external light, inner valley”, emphasising the city’s iconic image from the outside and the friendly valley environment created on the inside.
Wuhan Joy City in Guanggu takes “Light” as its design concept as it transforms the commercial buildings into huge energy rings. The buildings act as vessels, using light to weave a tale that is bursting with energy, vitality and endless possibilities.
“Joy Valley” was designed to provide flexible and versatile interior and exterior spaces for customers, showcasing a multi-dimensional, diversified, interactive shopping experience that caters to the new generation of young shoppers and their need for both social and commercial spaces.
The outer valley emanates an immense bundle of energy, like white rocks covered with magma, flowing down to form tempered crystals.
When people come close, they will be enticed by the block entrance, adorned with shiny “diamonds”. The team worked in tandem with the lighting designer to reflect the bright, clear entrance design with pure, 4000K white light to create an elegant and clean mesmerising effect.
Taking the build-to-line ratio and the planning of municipal roads between the southern and northern plots into consideration, the project adopts a ring-shaped building enclosure with the outdoor “Joy Valley” as the courtyard in the centre, creating a unique inner valley environment which is free from outside interference.
In combination with the building layout, the internal commercial circulation path forms a closed loop on the first floor. Atrium spaces with different themes were created at the turning points and key nodes along the circulation path. Some of which are completely surrounded by shops; some of these atriums face “Joy Valley” on one side, allowing natural light to peak in. The view of the inner valley can be seen directly from the interior, creating a connection between the interior and exterior.
In addition, the indoor atriums adopt different themes, each with a unique look that helps customers to easily recognise and distinguish them, thereby improving the shopping experience. The atriums create volumes of different layers and scales in the inner valley. The spaces are connected through outdoor terraces and staircases, providing visitors with an outdoor experience, as if they were walking through a valley and exploring its wonders.
Set in the centre of the southern façade of Joy Valley is a huge interactive screen measuring 21×37 m, similar to the proportions of a mobile phone. Thanks to interactive display technology, the screen helps to flexibly create various ambiances at different times in the inner valley, becoming its main attraction and an exhibition area during important activities. The courtyard lighting box and the adjacent textured curtain walls form multiple contrasted layers of light and shadow.
Fountains, starlight-green plants, misty forest firefly lights and shadow create an immersive Wizard of Oz-style dreamy creek setting, bringing infinite surprises and natural delights to adults and children alike.
If the focus of the internal-facing “Joy Valley” is to create a human-scale spatial experience, the building’s façade on the city side would mainly feature the urban-scale display of architectural images. The design of the façade is inspired by the high-tech industrial characteristics of the Guanggu New Area. The development of high technology is essentially a process of breaking down layers of constraints, seeking change in stability, and allowing the light of creativity and wisdom to shine through.
To a certain extent, this process coincides with the commercial development concept of the Joy City series. Consequently, this positive metaphor was used as the design concept for the façade of Wuhan Joy City, imagined as a build-up of vitality and energy that splits the rocks to form a valley, before bursting forth and shining brightly onto the city.
Thanks to the full support of the client, Grandjoy Holdings Group, and the hard work of all the consulting teams, the project was continuously improved by analysing solutions to formulate a rigorous design, with each brainstorming session helping to further boost creativity. Thanks again to the Wuhan Joy City project team and Joy City shopping centres for acknowledging and supporting Benoy.
Project overview:
Scope of services:
Masterplanning, architectural design
Category:
Mixed-use
Client:
Grandjoy Holdings Group
Total floor area:
420,000 m2 (including 136,000 m2 retail above ground)
Principal project designer:
Pang Qin
Design director:
Yejia Zhu
Project leader:
Xu Ke, Ding Hao
Chief designers:
Xue Tielong, Willow Wei, Chen Xinyi, Xu Zihao etc.
