The ‘Lotus Building and People’s Park’ project, covers 3.5 hectares of the site and conjugates three associated buildings, each rendering the lotus flower in distinctive phases of bloom. The Lotus Building stems out of an artificial lake in the heart of the city thereby giving the appearance of a flower on a pond.
The Lotus Building includes revolutionary architecture done by Melbourne-based architects Studio505. Visitors to the building can enter from underneath, through a submerged passage ‘a tunnel’ interfacing the recreation center and the shore. The interior and exterior surfaces are made out of beige, white and stainless steel hexagon tiles, with a stupendous chandelier at the top of the hub.
“The Lotus Building is an addition to an existing double story subterranean municipal facility situated beneath an existing artificial lake,” wrote the designers on the Studio 505 project page. “The building houses parts of the planning bureau as well as new exhibition halls meeting rooms and conference centers.”
The botanical magnificence features a double-storey subterranean municipal facility, cultural and civic landmark which will be home to departments of the city’s planning bureau, newly developed exhibition halls, meeting rooms and conference halls.
The project employs environmental sustainability to the core of its architectural approach. It is designed to utilize minimum energy possible, through 2,500 geothermal piles driven into the ground beneath the artificial lake. A thermal smokestack in the center of the building employs evaporative cooling from the lake surface to augment traditional air conditioning systems. At night, the integrated lighting systems gradually cycle through different color combinations like an aesthetically pleasing clockwork changing color every 20 seconds.