Gray Barn Art Museum

What is now 2800 Yangshupu Road was once the Yangshupu Power Plant, the largest thermal power plant in the Far East, built with British investment in 1913. The site retains rich industrial heritage: the 105-meter chimney became a landmark for ships entering Shanghai port, and the gantry cranes, coal conveyor trestles, conveyor belts, clean water tanks, wet ash silos, and dry ash silos along the riverbank have distinctive spatial volumes and forms that are impressive and occupy an important position in the Yangshupu waterfront connectivity project. At the easternmost dock of the power plant section, the original dry ash storage silos were converted into the Grey Silo Art Museum. The design for the silo conversion began in 2015. Due to uncertain programming, it underwent multiple rounds of revision before finally settling on an art-exhibition-oriented strategy with high flexibility and openness. Two landscape platforms were added to connect the originally independent three silos into a unified whole. A hazy interface treatment was applied to transform the originally 15-meter-high closed silos. The entire space's usage pattern is imagined as a series of fully public roaming paths, starting from the bottom of the silos. The project by TJAD demonstrates how industrial storage structures can be transformed into contemporary art galleries, preserving the raw character of the silos while creating unique, immersive exhibition spaces.