23 December 2022

Benoy project wins Outstanding Design Awards at 2022 WAFC

We are excited to announce that the Benoy project, Guangzhou Yangtian Electric Substation 220-kV, has been honoured with Outstanding Design Awards at the 2022 World Architecture Festival China (WAFC).

The World Architecture Festival (WAF) is one of the largest and most prestigious events dedicated to the global architecture industry, and the World Architecture Festival China (WAFC) is the only independent event officially authorised by WAF.

This year’s awards have shortlisted 78 design projects for China from 46 top design firms worldwide. These ground-breaking projects have been professionally reviewed by 27 judges from the UK, Germany, Australia, and other countries.

On 16 December, the 2022 WAFC online awards ceremony was successfully concluded, with 4 major categories of awards, 13 Commended Project Awards, 7 Outstanding Design Awards, 5 Public Choice Awards, and 5 Outstanding Young Designers revealed. 

Congratulations again to the winning design team!

Discover all the winners here:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/XoecKqHLXgKTzq-unEik‑w

Guangzhou Yangtian Electric Substation 220-kV

Electric substations are often on the periphery; while it provides essential infrastructure to any neighbourhood, they are rarely a place where people congregate. Our goal was to change this mindset and subvert those of conventional substations. To pave the way for a new generation of public-facing infrastructure.

Located in Huangpu District, Guangzhou, this substation competition is intended to integrate into both physical urban context and social fabric while capturing the local historical heritage in the area. Covering a total area of 14,600 sqm, the project will be built on the local material palette to create a series of layered walls that allow the substation to sit harmoniously within the surrounding natural and built environment.

Gregory Kovacs, Design Director and Principal Project Director said: We are very honoured by this recognition. The ambition of this project was to develop a socially more sustainable approach to power substations — to find ways to integrate this large piece of industrial infrastructure into their cultural, social and physical contexts.

Inspired by a phoenix’s rebirth, Benoy designed a series of blade structures using repurposed crushed bricks from the old houses of an abandoned village as the aggregate of the concrete structure to achieve a terracotta-like surface and a historical texture. The use of cladding boards creates a highly distinctive 3‑dimensional illusion of a phoenix’s feathers, conveying a subtle and serene beauty in the change of light and shadow.

Viewing from the front, the blade structures will appear layered, creating an abstract landscape appearance seen in traditional landscape painting. From the west side of the park, each blade structure opens up into pocket spaces of different zones: Seating Area, Water Scape, Sculpture Park and Garden.

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