Video: Progress Made on Shanghai Planetarium
THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2018
The superstructure is complete for Shanghai’s new planetarium, a 38,000-square-meter (nearly 125,000-square-foot) structure that will become the astronomical branch for the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum.
The Planetarium
New York-based firm Ennead Architects is leading the project with a design scheme centered around different astronomical principles. The building’s three main forms—the oculus, the inverted dome and the sphere—act as astronomical instruments that track the sun, moon and stars.
Shanghai Planetarium - Construction Drone Footage from Leisure Media on Vimeo.
“In linking the new Museum to both scientific purpose and to the celestial references of buildings throughout history, the exhibits and architecture will communicate more than scientific content: they will illuminate what it means to be human in a vast and largely unknown universe,” said design partner Thomas Wong on the firm’s website.
Construction broke ground in December 2016, and doors are slated to open to the public in 2020. Current progress is shown in a new drone video (above) released by the firm, and Wong said that the entire reinforced concrete superstructure for the main building is complete.
“Structural steel components are beginning to be added, including the steel ring truss at the building’s 35-meter cantilever and the steel sphere framing which houses the planetarium theater,” Wong said in an interview. “Auxiliary buildings throughout the site—such as the overnight youth camp and the solar telescope and optical telescope towers—are also taking shape.”
Wong said that this fall, crews will begin installing the exterior cladding, which will include faceted anodized aluminum panels formed into ribbons.
Tagged categories: Building Envelope; Construction; Structural steel; Video
