Two projects in Greece and China show how the spatial language of meeting spaces could evolve. Their designers explain how urban space can be transformed into flexible venues, and why multiple modes of use are important. 

The Arcade by Superimpose turns a Hangzhou basement into a diverse suite of meeting rooms by introducing flexible design and imaginative artificial lighting. ConfEx Park in Thessaloniki is a masterplan by Sauerbruch Hutton, Gustafson Porter and Bowman, and Elena Stavropoulou. It turns the standard exhibition and conference centre into an urban park with permeable buildings, civic and social purpose, and intensity of use. 

Ruben Bergambagt, founding partner of Superimpose, on turning underutilized urban space into flexible meeting rooms 

The Arcade is in the basement of a very big mixed-use development in Hangzhou, strategically located between a couple of universities. The client had an initial idea to use it for leisure and community facilities. But because of these universities, and the apartments above being mostly rented out to professors and some students, we discussed having a conference centre where people can work, learn, and meet within the compound. Especially with regards to the ongoing restrictions of the pandemic.

Rents are going up in China. What you see is companies still having central offices but without the big meeting rooms or conference spaces. They hire them instead. Companies have started using their spaces smarter to save costs, because most of these meeting spaces are empty anyway, only used once or twice a week. The Arcade was designed so the different units could be rented out to these companies. There’s a big auditorium, a small one, classrooms. . .all different typologies to create diversity but also make the space very flexible. You can open up the doors of the units to include the hallway. The walls between the spaces are flexible so they can be made bigger or smaller.

Superimpose Architecture transformed the basement of a commercial mixed-use development in Hangzhou, China, into a lively, multipurpose conference centre

We quite liked the existing mushroom-like columns and saw they gave a rhythm to the space. Then we thought about how we could create a feeling of natural daylight, even though it would have to be artificial. After some brainstorming we came up with the idea of an arcade, like London’s Burlington Arcade. The typology has quite narrow dimensions, but a regular rhythm of shopfronts and natural daylight. 

The idea of renting these meeting spaces is interesting, but there's also the creative adaptive reuse angle. The Netherlands has a lot of empty shops right now, so why not transform them into these kinds of meeting spaces? We’re seeing this enormous densification [of cities] going on due to shortage of space. Also the need to bring functions closer together to reduce travel impact and carbon emissions. To reduce time spent on travel too, as people are now so used to online meetings. These more mindful conference centres could be brought closer to the core of the city. The desire for efficiency could also drive hybrid functions around subway stations and transport nodes. Take a conference centre in a train station for example: you could arrive in a city for a meeting but not need to leave the station. 

Lina Lahiri, partner at Sauerbruch Hutton, on how ConfEx Park in Thessaloniki is setting a precedent for more permeable exhibition and conference spaces with multiple modes of use 

Our client’s request was to give something back to the city. Both a private and public space as the project is partly funded by the city and by the Greek government. The approach we took together with [landscape architect] Gustafson Porter and Bowman was to push the functions to one corner of the site and make the rest of it a park. We thought that is what the city needs. 

The site has five buildings, or bubbles as we call them, in total. What we’ve done that is quite unusual is to stack the exhibition halls by two on top of each other. The entrances are designed to blur the boundary between outside and inside. Two of the biggest buildings have roof gardens with exhibition areas open to the sky. There are also upper-level inside-outside spaces to the buildings, and parts of the landscape open to exhibitions too. Each building has a public restaurant open independently of the events. These are on the upper floor, firstly for views, but secondly to encourage visitor flow through the buildings. It was important to keep the site safe and the best way of doing that is to have it inhabited most of the time. 

Cover and above: Set within an urban park in Thessaloniki, the ConfEx centre is currently in planning. Renders: Artefactory, Ponnie

Something we’re discussing a lot with the client is how the conference and exhibition spaces could be open to social use in between events. One hall was already used as a vaccination centre during the pandemic, and for temporary housing for Ukrainian refugees. We are deciding whether to have one space more suited to these emergency uses. The site’s original buildings were used conventionally for large industry exhibitions and conferences. By introducing more daylight to the design we are opening up a more multifunctional use, for art exhibitions, educational sessions, or different activities.

We’ve done only in-person meetings on this project and I think that speaks to the Greek culture of meeting and talking in person. What we’ve tried to do with this is go back to the 1950s idea of a fairground. One at the heart of the city, big public events that involve families, people eating together, and participating in different activities. Placing these functions in the middle of the city gives them a whole new layer of use. A lot of exhibition and conference spaces are inaccessible and for businesses only. This is all open. Instead of thinking that [meeting technology would reduce the size of] these spaces in future, we could help the client to encourage more use of them, in terms of energy too. Large gatherings generate a lot of heat, and we are thinking about how to use that at other times of the day.