Copper Blockhouse in Shanghai by Wutopia Lab

In a Shanghai enterprise zone, a space suitable for various uses such as exhibitions, events or as a café is topped by a barrel roof clad in copper.

A businessman friend of Yu Ting's commissioned the architect and his office Wutopia Lab to plan a central building for his enterprise zone for creative startups. The building's exact purpose remained undefined, but initially both the client and his architect rejected the idea of putting it to any commercial use, such as a café.

Yu compares his design to a spiritual stronghold, one that has the form of a barrel-vaulted room open only at the ends and given a shape that is as much inspired by ship-building as by the storage shed that previously stood at the site. The parallels were no coincidence as components for use in ship-building were once produced at the plot.

Steel structure within a skin of copper

The building's supporting structure consists of welded steel beams between 150 mm and 220 mm wide and clad on the outside and inside in sheet copper. The shelving structure in the interior is also built of the non-ferrous metal.

The room can be opened like a stage to the pool of water to the north. © CreatAR Images

House in a house

In the large interior, the architects inserted a sort of a house in a house. The stainless steel volume containing toilets and a kitchen can be used as a cafe after all but also be opened like a stage to the pool of water at its front to the north. In that case, the building seems to emerge from the water like a submarine. If the water in the pool is lowered a little, a walkway connecting the café stage with the opposite bank comes into sight. On the south side of the building, a wall once used for wall newspapers has been preserved – one of the few historical relicts at this otherwise completely made-over enterprise zone.