Shenjia Garden Intangible Heritage Pavilion: A Landmark in Robotic Brickwork Architecture

The Shenjia Garden Intangible Heritage Pavilion in Nanqiao Town, Shanghai, designed by Archi-Union Architects in collaboration with TJAD, redefines robotic brickwork architecture. As part of the “Nanqiao Source” renewal plan, this 2,862 m² cultural hub bridges tradition and innovation, integrating local materials, parametric design, and intelligent construction technologies.

Positioned as a cultural anchor along the Punan Canal, the pavilion unites community life, heritage preservation, and modern craftsmanship into a single architectural narrative.

Urban and Cultural Context

The pavilion is one of nine micro-interventions in the “One River ∙ Nine Beads” urban acupuncture strategy for Fengxian District. Sited within the historic Shenjia Garden, it maintains harmony with the surrounding heritage buildings by adopting horizontal massing instead of competing vertically.

An offset entrance preserves the garden’s axial view, while a restrained material palette of clay brick, fair-faced concrete, and glass establishes a chromatic dialogue with the site’s historic masonry.

The Parametric Brick-Weave Façade

The most striking feature of the pavilion is its parametric brick-weave screen. Inspired by the natural imagery of “wind skimming water,” the façade is generated through algorithmic rotations and projections of uniform clay bricks. The result is a ripple-like texture that functions as sun-shade, secondary structure, and cultural symbol.

Behind the screen, a steel sub-frame ensures stability, while calculated apertures regulate natural light and passive cooling, turning a traditional building material into a flexible, high-performance architectural textile.

Robotic Masonry: Precision in Construction

Central to the pavilion’s architectural innovation is its robotic brickwork fabrication process. Using a direct design-to-manufacture workflow, brick coordinates from the parametric model are transferred to industrial robots for off-site assembly.

This process allows for dry-connection installation without scaffolding, reducing on-site construction time by 30% and material waste by 40%. Replaceable hanging joints extend the lifespan of the façade, setting a new benchmark for sustainable cultural architecture.

Interior as Structural and Environmental Performance

Inside, the design avoids decorative excess in favor of structural and environmental orchestration. A three-storey folded-plate concrete core, generated using Bidirectional Evolutionary Structural Optimisation (BESO), serves as both load-bearing spine and climatic chimney.

Cantilevered stair treads align with tension zones, and skylights create dynamic light patterns that recall structural stress fields. The integration of stack-effect ventilation and the self-shading brick façade ensures passive cooling during transitional seasons.

A 24×12 m column-free hall with movable partitions allows the space to shift between exhibitions and craft workshops, supporting both cultural programming and community engagement.

Structural Logic and Formal Continuity

The building’s north-south frames are optimised through structural topology algorithms to reduce member count and joint complexity. The undulating brick façade and steel skeleton form a unified design language, aligning aesthetics with structural necessity—a key hallmark of advanced robotic brickwork architecture.

A New Model for Cultural Infrastructure

The pavilion performs three intertwined roles: It is a vessel of cultural memory, housing exhibitions and workshops; A demonstrator of intelligent construction, showing how local materials can be digitally reinterpreted; And an urban catalyst, connecting the historic villa with the canal promenade and enhancing daily cultural life.

The Shenjia Garden Intangible Heritage Pavilion exemplifies how robotic brickwork architecture can merge heritage and technological innovation. By reimagining traditional clay brick through parametric algorithms and robotic fabrication, the pavilion offers a contemporary architectural language that both respects history and embraces the future.

All the photographs are works of Shengliang Su