Christian Kerez

Hainan Tower

Hainan is a popular tourist destination in southern China. The island hosts approximately 80 million tourists per year from both mainland China and many other countries, who come to enjoy the natural beauty of its beaches and its landscape parks. It is often compared to Hawaii because of the diversity of the landscape and the combination of tropical rain forests and wide, sandy beaches. The site is located on Hainan Island Scenic Route which follows the coastline around the entire island. Shanqin Bay Extreme Sports Station is one of forty key stations of the ring road which will be designed by such different architects as Atelier Deshaus, and Yung Ho Chang, among others.

The ring road in this area of the island is especially beautiful because of its proximity to the coastline. The Station itself is located right next to the sea. The first stage of the program consists of parking facilities with a small visitor’s center and an iconic tower. In the second stage, a commercial program will be added, accommodated in open pavilions surrounding a large skateboard park. The tower also provides a platform for bungee jumping and could be used for climbing since this particular station is dedicated to extreme sports. The formal vocabulary of the tower does not relate to specific architectural elements but instead evokes organic and geological associations, such as the caves on the beach close by or the tropical vegetation.

The design process started with scans of Chinese scholar stones. Later, stairs and terraces were added to the interior space of the scanned surface. Through a simple 3D scan on the mobile phone, handmade clay models resembling organic objects were likewise turned into a digital 3d model showing an interior space. However, to do justice to the marvelous views of the landscape, any volumetric appearance of the tower was abandoned to reveal a space inside a building that is at the same time a space outside of a building.

While most lookouts consist of an open, exposed staircase leading to a roof terrace with a view of the landscape, this tower most of all offers a spatial experience in and of itself. It affords many different views of the landscape and is designed to prevent visitors climbing up and down from getting vertigo. It frames the landscape in a diversity of ways and offers many opportunities to take a break and enjoy the space itself as well as the views outside. The roof terrace is just one possible way to enjoy the landscape. The outlook is based on manifold geometries. Despite their irregularity they are defined by modules which each function simultaneously as a structural design and a system of circulation. The contours of this complex structure will be prefabricated in the factory and assembled on site while the actual surfaces will be constructed directly on site out of curved steel mesh on which layers of concrete will be sprayed by hand. This will eliminate the need for expensive formwork.

Christian Georg Kerez is a Swiss architect, architectural photographer and professor.

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