Zhoukoudian Peking Man Cave
200best ES
THAD Architectural Design & Research Institute of Tsinghua University
2018
Type
Cultural
Tags
conservation, traces from the past, 200Best, Inhabited landscapes, remembering the cave
Visitability
Allowed
Description
As it was aimed to minimize the interventions adopted to maintain the site intact and reduce the amplitude of temperature and humidity vibration, the double-layered skin and non-linear structure was adopted, with careful calculation of natural-light efficiency. Therefore, low energy consumption was realized with natural-lighting and excellent ventilation.Digital monitoring system was adopted in the construction process to ensure the safety of the site per se and its surrounding rock mass on the mountain.The original plants on the site moved away before the construction work were replanted into position afterwards, so as to recover the original landscape and maintain the authenticity of the historical environment.Besides protecting the Peking Man Cave from damages caused by weathering factors and providing proper micro-environment for the archaeologists to work on site, the shelter also served to explain and exhibit the cultural heritage value of the site, and as a digital exhibition platform by adopting multi-media techniques. Illustrated information of excavation history was projected on the west precipices to explain the cultural layers on it, while animation of hominids life and of protection history was projected on the north precipice, which enabled the vivid explanation of the heritage to the public in a most efficient way.The shelter itself, with its unique and excellent design, has become an internet celebrity architecture, which does not only help to attract much more visitors to the site, which benefits local economy, add sense of pride to the local people, and serves as a vivid model to explain both philosophy and knowledge of cultural heritage conservation, architectural technologies and environmental sustainability.(Description provided by THAD)