Project: Shanghai Oriental Art Center
Location: Pudong, Shanghai
CW Quantity: 14,176 m²
Building Height: 33 m
Design Institute:  Paul Andrew Architects, French; East China Architectural Design & Research Co.,ltd
Architect: Paul Andrew; Cui Zhongfang


Shanghai Oriental Art Center is located in the administrative and cultural center of Pudong New Area. It is designed by French noted architect, Andrew Paul, and elaborately designed by Huadong Architectural Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd. The main building adopts the reinforced concrete frame shear wall structure, the superstructure is composed of 5 petals, each independently partitioned; and the roofing structure adopts the wide span bi-direction steel reinforce girder system, the total length and width of which is around 160 meters and 120 meters respectively. It is divided into 5 independent zones at the expansion joint: namely; Section 1 as entrance lobby, Section 2 as small concert hall, Section 3 as symphony hall, Section 4 as exhibition hall and Section 5 as theater.

The external surface of the 5 independent partitions is designed to be complex hyperboloid glass facade. The support system of the facade comprises vertical elliptically shaped steel tube and landscape round steel tube, and the outside of the steel structure of the facade is attached with stainless steel single layer tight-wire cable net to reinforce the entire structural stability. The glass is composed of 12mm transparent toughened glass + 1.52mmSGP film+ 0.4mm perforation galvanize steel plate + 1.52mmSGP film + 15mm transparent toughened glass, installed with concealed hinge point fixed system.

The support structure of the 5 independent petaline Facade is composed of tight-wire space curved steel structure applied with external prestressing force (including column, rail, stand bar and prestressing force); the trigonal area of the juncture between single petaline is designed as the rigid connection area (the rail and column is connected through rigid welding), the rail and column of the other part of the Facade is connected through hinges. The upper end of each single steel structure column supports the top beam of the cover steel structure, along the radial (horizontal) is the fixed hinge, which can slide freely without restrictions in the vertical position, but restricted in hoop direction with an elastic butterfly piece. The lower end of the column stands on the concrete foundation of the main structure, along the radial (horizontal) and vertical direction both are the fixed hinges, which are in hoop direction restricted with elastic butterfly piece; inside the steel structure, it is connected to the kernel cylinder concrete structure or arc steel structure girder through horizontal cross wise distributed stay bar, for which the horizontal earthquake-resistant stay girder is installed in the middle of Sections2, 3 and 5, which is connected to the kernel cylinder concrete structure in rigid connection, with the front end connected to the elliptical tube column through the hinge connection; and at the external of the steel structure is the prestressed single layer stainless steel tight-wire cable net system. 

To ensure the spacial stability of curtain wall structure, inter-cross stainless steel single layer tight-wire cable net in external of the curved surface steel structure of Facade and internal of the Facade glass are added. The original hinge connection between each trigonal area rail and vertical ellipse steel tube in each juncture are changed to welding in order to convert the border of each region to rigid area; meanwhile, anti-seismic girder is added in the middle of Section 2 with relatively bigger dimension and weaker stability. It is proven through calculation that this proposal significantly improves the earthquake-resistant behavior and the overall stability that bears little field installation difficulty, and causes little effect on the architecture style because the dimension of the intercross tight-wire cable net is small; furthermore, the dead weight of the tight-wire cable net can be neglected and will never increase the size of other components caused by the load increasing. Meanwhile, the stainless steel tight-wire cable net system boasts strong assembly and better ornamental effect, which increases the artistic sentiment of the building.

As for the elliptical tube connection, the total length of one roof truss is around 10m~26m, and it can not be formed at one time due to restraining factors such as production and material. Through calculation, the connection in this place must be formed by way of equal strength connection, therefore, how to realize the equal strength connection under the precondition of not only achieving the construction effect but also meeting the requirement of manufacturing, transportation and installation posed a difficulty to this project.

Shanghai Oriental Art Center boasts unprecedented architectural style containing various curves, almost without one straight line. In some respects, it has to rely on the single separate design since there is no existing practice for reference. The curved glass wall connects the roof and base, and it is not directly attached to the building body but is installed in the manner of the steel frame-tight-wire cable net-support system and special point joint connection, which is completely new in China . In order to contribute a more transparent Facade and lighter structure, it adopts light grillwork made of vertical and horizontal elliptical steel component as main support of the Facade to enhance  its capability against wind load and earthquake.