The 387,500-sf Yangtze River International Conference Center has recently completed and opened in China’s Nanjing Jiangbei New District. The project is situated at a key juncture between China's eastern coastal cities and the Yangtze River Delta region.
The conference space is attached to a tower with a four-star hotel featuring 340 rooms that offer scenic views of the Yangtze River. The flowing curves of the Yangtze River are reflected in the building’s undulating podium while the titanium roof paneling evokes sunlight playing on the water’s surface. Rising above the podium, the shear, broad angles of the hotel tower evoke the sail of a junk, the traditional wind-powered river boat once common on the Yangtze.
In the building’s podium, the large program areas of the convention center contains a series of flexible conference spaces bisected by a central 200-meter arcade, dividing the building into a north and south wing. The arcade serves as the primary circulation spine for the building, intersected by short, perpendicular bridges providing access from VIP entrances and the hotel tower. The convention center’s entrance and atrium is illuminated by a skylight, highlighting the hotel tower.
Located between the river and the city, the site’s boundaries shape the conference center’s wavelike forms and urban character. On the city side, to the north, the hotel tower’s facade utilizes a metal brise-soleil system. During the day, the metal façade serves to shade the building and increase energy efficiency. In the evening, lighting integrated in the façade creates a distinctive night-time presence within the city.
On the southern river side, the sinuous quality of facade mirrors the organic nature of the river’s edge, with a rippling metal and glass brise-soleil comprised of over 90,000 distinct metallic panels. The landscape is designed following a "sponge landscape" principle, strengthening ecological infrastructure by aiding in responsible management of runoff especially important to the riverside site. The high-performance facades and environmentally conscious landscape design contribute to the building's "3-Star rating," the highest sustainable design grade recognized by China's national green building standard.
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