Shanghai Artron Art Center

The Artron Shanghai Art Centre is an adaptive reuse of the former Shanghai No. 16 Towel Factory, executed on the principle of maximising existing space while respecting the convenience and economy of construction and the relationship between the original industrial scale, atmosphere and new programmes. The Ding Yi Building, the visual centre of the campus, was converted from the factory's former sewage treatment station through a collaboration between the architect and the contemporary artist Ding Yi, giving the structure a distinctive functional and formal identity. The architect invited the artist to translate his painting style into a custom tile design in varying colourways as the primary decorative cladding, layering new meaning onto the industrial relic. The original sewage hopper is partly retained as a spatial feature of the ground-floor cafe and partly converted into an exterior garden for the upper floor, while the old sewage pipe is left exposed in the cafe interior as a rainwater discharge fixture. New functions including a cafe, bookstore and art exhibition halls are inserted into the former treatment space, transforming it into an art destination. Ding Yi's coloured cross-pattern tiles intensify the building's artistic atmosphere without erasing the information carried by the original industrial structure, so that the new and the old read simultaneously. Project details are limited in the source material.