In the times when ecological matters deeply inform LILA’s consideration, Super Tube feels remarkably surprising, creative and refreshing. FISH Design turned The Shanghai underpass into a phantasmagorical landscape that finds its inspiration in the artificial, urban language of signage and infrastructure and offers a meticulously designed and executed playscape. It draws from several historical references of graphic and on-site design and provides a colourful and cheerful new interpretation of formerly uncanny underpass spaces. Super Tube is an honest tribute to city life, to flashy, saturated, and perplexing navigating through hyper-urban centres full of infrastructure and visual density. It is extremely fun; one can find references to moments in contemporary Chinese art and design or even perhaps to Memphis Style, pop art, or hyper-pop.
- from the award statements
As a large metropolis, Shanghai faces the dual challenge of inadequate quantity and low quality of public spaces, as well as the increasing demand for high-quality public spaces from the population, all within the constraints of high population density and limited environmental resources. In order to address these challenges, Shanghai has actively implemented urban renewal, shifting from incremental construction to improving existing infrastructure. It focuses on the previously neglected “space under the bridge,” effectively utilizing and revitalizing the gray space under bridges through renovation and updates to meet the needs of citizens and activate the space. These exploratory practices in Shanghai can provide exemplary guidance and solutions for the development of high-density spaces in global metropolises. They will also contribute to the development experience and innovative knowledge for the future development of global metropolises.
Shanghai Super Tube is a public passage space that we specially transformed under the bridge of Suzhou River. The total renovation area is about 1880 square meters. Although it just opened on New Year’s Day 2024, it has already become one of the must-visit places for young people. The project is a passage space under the bridge, located at the intersection of two main roads on the east side of Changning District in downtown Shanghai, underneath the main traffic bridge Cao Yang. It is the first infrastructure design node of the leisure and cultural belt under the Suzhou River in Changning District and also serves as the gateway to the three major administrative districts of Changning, Jing’an, and Putuo in Shanghai.
As a space under the bridge, the site has been closed for many years, with surrounding walls built around it, resulting in mixed traffic of pedestrians and vehicles and inconvenient transportation, as well as safety hazards. In addition, the top of the site is covered by the bridge, with a low clearance height, creating a sense of oppression and closure, lacking highlights, and difficult to attract popularity. On the other hand, the Suzhou River, as the mother river of Shanghai, has a very long history of culture and is a cultural symbol of great social value for the people of Shanghai. The space under the bridges along the Suzhou River has served as the information exchange center and commodity trade center for surrounding communities since the 1980s. However, the site before the renovation gradually lost the imprint of traditional community culture along the Suzhou River.
Based on this, the purpose of this transformation is not only to provide convenient transportation for daily travel but also to integrate local cultural atmosphere, achieve the cultural metamorphosis of infrastructure, and create a slow walking space on the banks of the Suzhou River that is friendly for people of all ages. Taking inspiration from a yellow municipal gas pipe that remained on-site, the design team used the combination of “pipes” and “colors” as a clever way to break through the problem. The former is a representative element of the industrial history along the Suzhou River and even in modern Shanghai, while the latter is the best choice to change the shady and gloomy atmosphere of the space under the bridge.
Urban infrastructure construction often has high engineering professionalism and functional specificity, but it fails to directly link with the construction of high-quality urban spaces in daily life. The original site only served as transportation infrastructure with a single function. The transformation design focuses on releasing the spatial ambiguity of infrastructure and constructing “field infrastructure” by overlapping urban public services, in order to promote the construction of high-quality urban public spaces. The renovated Shanghai Super Tube opens its walls, activates the gray space with highly saturated art graffiti, and transforms it into a distinctive gateway showcase space, forming a continuous pedestrian node along the main road of Changning District with Zhongshan Park and 88 Commercial Plaza. The design team cooperated with the owners to plan a series of community commercial services on the site, such as cafes, trendy restaurants, convenience stores, etc., which not only stimulate the economic growth of the surrounding community but also promote community vitality, increase convenience for residents’ daily use, and enhance their sense of happiness. This new form of overlaying public services with urban infrastructure realizes the exploration of a new model for urban infrastructure transformation and renewal.
To recreate the imprint of factory life in the communities along the Suzhou River in Shanghai, the design team specially purchased a batch of discarded industrial pipelines and transformed them into safety fences, seats, and surprising small nodes in the site. The space under the bridge was wrapped with curved steel plates, security monitoring was decorated with colored steel pipes, and non-motorized vehicle barriers were replaced with yellow cylinders. The element of “pipeline” becomes an ubiquitous design vocabulary in the site, and these elements not only have a sculptural sense and functionality but also pay tribute to the silhouette of Shanghai’s industrial history, such as storage tanks, paint cans, beer barrels, and vacuum tubes. The large-scale seesaw designed with industrial elements and CCTV cameras cleverly wrapped in Christmas-colored sprayed steel pipes have been loved by users of all ages since their opening. Bold color design is a key technique to change the original dim atmosphere of the site under limited conditions. When the design team packaged the pipes with industrial memory symbolism, they used geometric patterns and bright colors. The dramatic artistic effect formed by these patterns pays tribute to the timeless classic “Memphis style”, which represents the attitude of daring imagination, breaking conventions, and fearless optimism that we hope to convey to users through our work. We not only put a lot of effort into colorful graffiti but also combined various texts with graffiti, including Shanghai slang, project logos, ID codes of Changning and Putuo districts, important names of industrial plants, and deliberately preserved factory slogans. The design of the texts also caters to the needs of young people to check in and provides them with space and materials for their photo-sharing activities. The rough industrial pipelines and language graffiti in local dialects also create different effects. The ground of the pedestrian passage has special patterns, which disrupt and rearrange the English words “SHANGHAI”, “SUZHOU RIVER”, and “INDUSTRY” to form creative nodes when imprinted on the ground.
With the installation of colors and graffiti, elements such as pipes, seats, and fences embellish, fill, and redivide the space, and the combination with dazzling lights increases the interactivity and recognizability of the space, while also transforming the dark space under the bridge into a public stage. Young people perform various forms of improvisation here, such as street dance, street bands, skateboarding, and theater. The distinctive site brings unlimited inspiration to young people and provides them with a free and versatile space to showcase themselves, unleash themselves, and sweat their youth, creating a positive cycle of increasing popularity and vitality, and becoming a fertile ground for nurturing art.
“Shanghai is where I grew up, with all my feelings, the first toast, the first love, in the age of eternal innocence ……”
The nostalgic tune of Lippo Beer’s advertisement, “Reasons to Like Shanghai,” resonates deeply with countless Shanghainese, evoking memories of childhood and the city’s industrial heritage. By adorning the wall with the title of this beloved song, our aim is to reignite a sense of connection to Shanghai’s past while inspiring a renewed appreciation for the city’s vibrant present.
Architecture offices involved in the design:
ECO-SMART LAB of Tongji University、FISH ART LAB、
RUIQIAO CIVIL ENGINEERING CONSULTANTS CO.LTD
Location: Intersection of North Jiangsu Road and Wanhangdu Road, Changning District, Shanghai, China
Design year: 2023
Year Completed: 2024
