Yangpu Red Depot

2025

Yangpu Red-Brick Warehouse Renovation Competition | Second Prize

Gross Area

3,150m²

Status

Concept

Completion Date

June 2025

Duration

2025.05-2025.06

Location

Shanghai, China

Project Overview

The No.9 Cotton Mill Warehouse stands on the Huangpu River waterfront Yangpu district. This early 20th-century neoclassical structure—with reinforced concrete bones and exposed red-brick skin—bears witness to Shanghai's century-long textile industry evolution.

This renovation transcends spatial renewal; it is a reweaving of urban memory—forging new connections between past and future, historical identity and urban transformation.

Guided by the philosophy "Respect Time, Begin from the Future", m|p adopts a restrained approach to create a vibrant, daily-integrated, urban memory community, tightly interlinking people, cultural heritage, and urban fabric.

Design Strategy

Design anchors three core strategie— Connect · Preserve · Rebuild

Connect：Continuity & Intergration

To break spatial fragmentation and continue the urban fabric, the design explores and practices the concept of "connection" on multiple levels.

Landscape：East-West: Extend the riverside slow-traffic system and cycling paths; North-South: Build layered landscape sequences and public spaces serving diverse needs.

Sky Corridor：Sky corridor connects to the old tower, providing a convenient passage to 2F/3F. Contrasts ground-level slow-traffic: sky walkway for efficiency, ground for leisure. Optimizes internal flow and remedies vertical circulation flaws.It not only extends the function of the building, but also connects the landscape. Waterfront Balcony at the rear fills the functional gap of the riverside green belt, making the overall landscape more complete.

Preserve：Restoration&Innovation

"Preservation" is central—façade become its vessel: Exercise restraint; reject over-restoration; prevent "new" obscuring "old."

Based on visual path analysis, we preserved original facades in core sightlines. Strategically open voids in visual gray zones to release interior space.

Mechanical Opening System

Design honor history without copying forms. Kinetic flip panels become a highlight.They function like the building's rhythmic breath: Open panels bring light and views, shaping transparent spatial experiences; Closed panels define independent units, adapting to flexible functions. Through this dynamic cycle, the old factory's spatial potential is awakened, effortlessly meeting diverse contemporary demands.

Rebuild：Inner Resilience

Inner resilience is spatial flexibility and high adaptability. It embodies the essence of contemporary architectural sustainability – resilience to evolving functional demands endows buildings with enduring relevance through time.

We dissolve original boundaries, transforming enclosed blocks into permeable "urban living rooms". Eliminating fixed walls in favor of reconfigurable furniture systems and timber dividers. This enables dynamic spatial reconfiguration to accommodate hybrid work models. Third floor consolidates core exhibition functions while utilizing the "fifth façade"—the roof. Preserving the original truss structure enables natural daylighting, avoiding structural modifications that could damage historic fabric.

Preserving, connecting, and rebuilding communities anchors this vision—where people touch history's warmth and find present solace.

GALLERY

PROCESS