The 7th Competition on Steel Structure Innovation for College Students organized by China Steel Construction Society was brought to an end in Shanghai the other day. After preliminary review, 29 delegations from 26 colleges, universities and research institutes in China made to the final. Despite the strong competitors, the works of Chongqing University “Youlinhui-interperson connection: design of public spaces in communities” won the Special Award. Totally 1 Special Award, 3 First Awards, 7 Second Awards, 12 Third Awards and 6 Honorable Mentions were selected. This is another gratifying achievement made by Chongqing University at the event after the First Award won in 2020.
This Competition has “community service center” as its theme, and the participants were required to design a building with steel structure of no more than 4 floors, which can be used as spaces for cultural and sports activities, library and gym at ordinary times, and used as spaces for nucleic acid screening and vaccination during outbreak of epidemics. The focus should be on the size of the space and spatial conversion.
The works of Chongqing University, “Youlinhui”, is a clever combination of steel structure and building, and provides a variety of flexible large spaces that are highly inclusive to facilitate diversified communication and exchange of residents in the community. The staggered truss structure system developed under the leadership of Professor Zhou Xuhong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering through more than 20 years of hardworking, was adopted as the building structure. The structure system was designed to increase the building span to about twice the traditional structure and significantly increase the indoor clear height without adding cost. This means that this technology can be used to build a more flexible building with stronger visual impact that better fits the urban aesthetics and provide more urban architectural landscapes.
To meet the needs for larger bays and large cantilever, in the structural design of the works, the characteristics of steel structure were fully leveraged. The Vierendeel truss nodes were used to consume seismic energy, and the variable section beam was used to reduce the amount of steel consumption, which ensures the safety, comfort and economy of the scheme. With joint efforts of the civil engineering, architecture and other disciplines, a community service center-Youlinhui, which integrates interest, energy conservation and environmental protection, was designed. The diversified public activity spaces created in the building are characterized by their friendliness and inclusiveness, and can truly connect people.
