In the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, in the women’s freestyle skiing women’s platform final, Chinese player Gu Ailing threw and leaped in the air, breaking the historical record of the Winter Olympics with a difficult 1620-degree turn, and won gold in one fell swoop; a week later, Chinese player Su Yiming did the same. Won the gold medal with a proud result.
As the two athletes successively won the championship, the Shougang Ski Jump, which witnessed their glorious moment, and the cooling tower standing tall behind the athletes when they took off have also become the focus of attention. Whether it is a big jumping platform shaped like a “crystal shoe”, a cooling tower with a very “cyberpunk” style, or the huge industrial buildings around it, they all belong to one place, and that is the new landmark of Beijing City – Shougang Park .
A century of wind and rain, the imprint of the industrial age
Back in 1919, the Beiyang government invested in the establishment of the “Longyan Iron Mine Co., Ltd. Shijingshan Refinery” in order to set up the iron and steel industry, which was later renamed “Shijingshan Iron and Steel Plant” (referred to as “Shigang”), which is Shougang’s predecessor.
In the initial stage of construction, the scale of the factory was not large. Only equipment such as No. 1 blast furnace and hot air blower imported from the United States were installed in the factory. In addition, a special railway line was built for iron ore transportation. In the 30 years after its completion, the factory has not yet developed and grown, and it has experienced wars by warlords, occupation by invaders, corruption of the Kuomintang… Under the troubled times, the cumulative iron output of the steel factory for decades is only 286,000 tons, and its productivity is very backward.
After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the government transformed Shigang into the first state-owned iron and steel enterprise in Beijing, and the growth of Shigang officially started. But growth didn’t happen overnight. The steel mill that had suffered greatly was half-abandoned at that time, and the furnace body more than ten meters high was full of residual iron and slag. In order to take up the important task of national production again, the workers worked hard day and night, and the blast furnace gushed out the rushing molten iron again.
The first oxygen top-blown converter in China opened a new page in my country’s converter steelmaking; 3 tons of side-blown small converters were built in 14 days, ending the history of Shigang with iron and no steel; with an annual output of 300,000 tons of small steel rolling The production line marks the start of Shigang’s steel rolling… In 1967, Shigang changed its name to “Capital Iron and Steel Company” (“Shougang” for short); in 1994, Shougang’s steel output reached 8.24 million tons, ranking first in the country.
Shougang has made great contributions to the construction of New China, and this growth history has become a proud memory of Shougang people.
The brilliance of Shougang has brought huge economic benefits, but the environmental pollution problems that follow are also becoming more and more serious.
At the beginning of this century, after Beijing obtained the right to host the 2008 Olympic Games, in order to comply with Beijing’s urban planning and environmental improvement, Shougang started a relocation plan in 2005 and moved to Caofeidian, Tangshan, Hebei, and completed the relocation in 2010 and completely stopped production. At the production shutdown ceremony, the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and Government awarded him the title of “Meritorious Shougang”, marking a successful conclusion to this century-old industrial process.
Only huge silos, quiet machines and dusty houses were left in the evacuated factory area. Looking around, the majestic blast furnace was still there, but the billowing smoke was gone. With the update and iteration of the post-industrial era, the existing industrial relic space resources in my country are about 3 billion square meters, which are large in number and large in area, but are not fully utilized.
Faced with this problem, urban development has gradually promoted the development of the stock space to the cultural industry. Beijing is one of the representative cities that practice this, and the 798 Art District is a successful case. As the only large-scale contiguous industrial area in the center of Beijing, Shougang has a complete industrial heritage architectural style and rich industrial cultural heritage. It has naturally become an important anchor for urban revival and industrial transformation. For more than ten years, the idle Shougang Park has undergone mighty planning and transformation on the original industrial site.
The symphony of ice and fire, the rebirth of the steel city
Shougang Park was suspended and relocated due to the Beijing Summer Olympics, and a new development opportunity was ushered in due to the Beijing Winter Olympics. In 2016, the Beijing Municipal Government determined the location of the office park for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Shougang, and planned to build it into a comprehensive park integrating office, conference, exhibition and leisure facilities, and the Xishi Winter Olympics Plaza was born.
The square is named after the Xishi freight branch on the north side of the project base where it is located. This branch is also the starting point of Shougang’s construction a century ago. The base is adjacent to Xiuchi in the south, Shijingshan Forest in the west, and sits on the ecological green corridor of Yongding River. It is an excellent natural resource for the transformation of the square.
However, despite the blessings of natural resources, what was left of the once thriving industrial production plants is the now icy and silent mega-building complex. Coupled with the large area of building renovation, how to integrate the modern lifestyle into this exaggerated scale of industrial relics has become an important issue for the renovation of the Winter Olympic Plaza area.
The architectural design team responsible for the renovation adopted the method of “darning, linking and stitching” to reconstruct the spatial scale relationship from the perspective of people. The main west ten silos in the square, originally used to store iron-making raw materials, consist of 16 cylindrical silos, 2 silos, several air conveying corridors, transfer stations and air compressor rooms.
The layout formed under the original industrial production process itself lacks spatial order, and the huge scale is even more depressing. Therefore, the designer implanted one or two layers of “boxes” between the huge scales, allowing the building to sew the gap in scale like a plug-in.
In the interior of the silo, a new floor was built, dividing the original upper and lower internal space into 8 floors, and the outer wall was carved with a circular hole with a diameter of 1~3 meters. The huge silo is like a weathered skeleton. This design is conducive to Internal ventilation and lighting are more suitable for modern office spaces.
For the vacant equipment room, the small water tower in the boiler room was transformed into an Olympic exhibition hall, and the power generation room was transformed into a coffee shop. The implantation of these special functions has given the park a lot of popularity.
Through systematic additions and links, the scattered industrial relic spaces are sewn together, returning to the oriental aesthetics in the form of “courtyard”, echoing the attitude of life with the layout of “gathering”, and turning the original industrial giant structure into a vibrant and full of vitality The humane “Beijing Courtyard” also allows the office operations of the Winter Olympics to run in an orderly manner here.
In order to meet the needs of the Winter Olympics, Shougang Park has gradually built many venues, such as short track speed skating, figure skating, curling, ice hockey and other training venues, known as the “four ices” of the Winter Olympics. The venue is none other than the “Snow Feitian” Shougang Ski Jumping Platform.
The Shougang Ski Jumping Platform is located on the bank of Qunming Lake, with four huge cooling towers on the north side and an oxygen plant renovation site on the south side. The design work is carried out by the Design and Research Institute of Tsinghua University.
As an Olympic project venue, the overall function of the big jumping platform is very complete, and the planning and construction process also makes full use of the industrial site. For example, in addition to the jumping platform itself, the designer has demarcated a security area around the Qunming Lake, covering an area of about 13.2 hectares, including the front yard area and the back yard area. The front yard area is located on the renovated plot of the oxygen plant. It is responsible for spectator distribution, ticketing, catering and other service functions during the game. The back yard area is temporarily built on the side of the cooling tower by Qunming Lake, mainly to provide transition and connection services for the adjacent Winter Olympics hotel. The construction of the entire Grand Jumping Stadium has linked many surrounding industrial relic spaces and activated most of the Shougang Park. It is the first complete combination of competition venues and industrial heritage in the history of the Winter Olympics.
The big jumping platform itself is also a model of “softness on the outside and rigidity on the inside”. The main body of the big platform is a steel structure, and the 4,100 tons of steel used are all produced by Shougang, and the materials are high-strength steel and weathering steel, which can effectively reduce the amount of materials. At the same time, the big jumping platform adopts a prefabricated construction scheme, selects materials nearby, and assembles modularly to conform to the concept of “green and low-carbon” of the Winter Olympics.
on to the steel and iron bones, the big diving platform with the name of “Xuefeitian” also has an elegant curve, which has won praises such as “Crystal Slipper” and “The Most Beautiful Skyline”. The name of the big jumping platform and its curved shape are both derived from the concept of “flying sky” given to the design.
The curve of Feitian is in line with the curve of the platform jumping track itself, and the Chinese characters of Feitian also coincide with the English “Big Air” interpretation of the platform jumping project, both of which have the image of leaping and flying in the air. The combination of gray-white steel frame and gradient perforated aluminum plate, coupled with the unrestrained posture of athletes in the air, perfectly interprets the concept of flying and the image of flying.
In addition to hardness and softness, it is agility and wisdom. Under the elegant shape of the big jumping platform, it is a variable curve composed of as many as 1100 modules. The curve is researched by experts through many simulation experiments, which can realize the artificial profile variable track and meet the requirements of different competitions under the FIS standards. Road requirements.
The combination of rigidity and softness, coupled with the thoughtful consideration of details, the construction of the Shougang Ski Jumping Platform presents the latest level in the field of competitive sports for the Winter Olympics, and makes it the world’s first permanently reserved ski jumping venue.” Snow Feitian” will forever fly on the world stage.
The legacy of the event, the transformation of the urban industry
After the event, the originally niche ice and snow sports became more and more popular among citizens, and various buildings in Shougang Park, which were renovated and designed for the Winter Olympics, also ushered in their own new places of use.
As the world’s first permanently reserved and used ski jumping platform, at the beginning of its design and construction, post-competition utilization was fully considered. After the Winter Olympics, it has been used to host various domestic and foreign platform competitions, and has become a training ground for professional athletes and a selection base for young reserve talents Snow sports.
At the same time, the big jumping platform is also open to the public and is used as a venue for music festivals, beer festivals, sports and cultural festivals, etc. Through unique activities such as light shows, food streets, and music salons, it is formed with Shijingshan Amusement Park and Langyuan Park. Night consumption circle to improve residents’ happiness.
Outside the big jumping platform, the “Four Ices” of the Winter Olympics also adopts the comprehensive utilization model of “events + activities”, which not only holds ice events, but also undertakes indoor sports such as basketball and boxing, and holds major commercial activities. In short, the venues after the game have been reasonably used, and a wave of national sports has also been set off.
In addition to the re-use of venues, Shougang Park has also transformed from the venue of the Winter Olympics to a check-in point favored by many tourists, and has continuously gained the reputation of “Industrial Disney”.
Entering the park from the south gate, passing through the tall jumping area of Qunming Lake is Liugonghui. Most of the buildings here are multi-storey buildings such as silos and warehouses left over from old factories. The narrowest silo has been transformed into a digital art museum. The museum has permanent immersive visual light and shadow exhibitions that are popular nowadays. The ground floor is very industrial. The bar, restaurant, you can easily shoot a blockbuster.
The power plant next to it was converted into the Shangri-La Hotel, an officially designated reception hotel during the Winter Olympics, which is now open to the public. The remnants of the industrial structure are vaguely visible in the glass curtain wall. These unique spatial experiences also make this place a new place for Beijing citizens to take a micro-vacation in the city.
To the north along Liugonghui, is the huge three blast furnace area. The blast furnace at night glows with red lights, the color is like the color of molten steel in the furnace, which reminds people of the steelmaking scene in the factory a hundred years ago. At the bottom of the blast furnace is the National Read Art Bookstore. This space, which is interspersed with steel plates and stained glass, brings together cultural and creative activities such as art trends, life fairs, LiveHouse and salon forums. It is the most avant-garde integrated store in Shougang Park.
Passing through the blast furnace is the Kappa Shougang Extreme Park located in the north of the park. This is a trendy sports check-in place, full of skateboard, rock climbing and other sports enthusiasts. In addition, Shougang Park also has a driverless experience point, an industrial version of Starbucks known as “the coolest in Beijing”, and a unique “Steel View Room” hotel…
Numerous site upgrades, content implantation, and functional integration have transformed the original single industrial plant into a super-large urban complex, an urban industrial community integrating culture and sports, and a new landmark for domestic industrial tourism. The success of the renovation of Shougang Park.
Facing the transformation of super-large-scale industrial relics, Shougang Park chose to start from the city’s energy level and development demands, and gave the park new vitality through dynamic renewal.The big industrial factory a hundred years ago, today’s ice and snow sports resort, the story of Shougang Park continues…
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