Skyline

The three towns of Hankou, Wuchang and Hanyang spread out along the banks of the Yangtze River and the Han River. In Wuhan（the river city）, "upstream, downstream" used to be the most important way for residents to locate. But with the expansion of the city and the construction of bridges and tunnels across the river, the pattern of Wuhan has entered the loop mode. When residents travel, their words vary from "Do you cross the river?" to "Which loops to go?" Today, the Yangtze River is no longer a concept of geographical coordinates, but a concept of landscape, a label to watch the wonders of the city.

In the modern city of tall buildings, it seems that only cities along the river can afford to continue discussing the term "skyline". The great rivers, like sections of the city, allowing the contours and details of this massive artifact to be opened to the public. And under the gaze of the two sides, Wuhan's skyline has grown ever higher in recent years. At night, they transform into giant city light shows. Of course, there are the boats swimming in the middle of the river, with the distant glow.

Cruise ship

This design named "Coiling Dragon on Two Rivers" wedding party type cruise ship, it is an all-steel welded catamaran with two OARS and two rudders. The ship is 61 meters long, 22 meters wide and 4 meters deep, with a maximum speed of 20km/h and a maximum capacity of 750 passengers. In our eyes, we would like to see it as a public building of 4,000 square meters, three floors high.

In fact, from Le Corbusier to Steven Hall, as a means of transportation and industrial products, the big ship has always been the object of modernist study or metaphor. But when we really intend to look at a ship from the perspective of architecture, we will immediately find the essential difference: It is not anchored to the site like a building, but a moving element of the city skyline. It has no permanent neighbors, but has the opportunity to have a temporary association with any of the towers. Based on this characteristic, we determined the most appropriate shape characteristics of the ship: neutral, horizontal extension, non-directional, translucency.

Cross arch

As the ship body is limited by the basic needs of function and technology, we focus on the design of the sunshade on the top floor. The form developed from the cross arch, on the one hand, a memorial space for wedding ceremonies is formed on the long axis, on the other hand, it get a four-sided frame, constantly cut the scenery of the two rivers and four banks.

The ceiling is made of translucent tensioned membrane structure. Following past practice in architecture, we submitted a steel structure that we thought would work, then waited for the ship designer’s modify opinions, and then enter the long phase of building and structure mutual run-ins.

But surprisingly smoothly, without a single iteration, the entire steel frame was built almost exactly as it was. And as an arch with a span of up to 20m, the rod section is much slimmer than we expected. Working with ship designers was a very special experience for us, if lightness is more of an aesthetic pursuit in architecture, on a ship it is associated with overall performance.