Mengyuan Zhang

With the development of society, the exchanges between countries are becoming more and more frequent, whether it is political, economic, or cultural. An increasing number of students are leaving their home countries to study in Australia, with a quarter of them from China. At the same time, a small number of people in Australia have a prejudice against Chinese students. Flyers discriminating against Chinese students have appeared at Melbourne University and Monash University. The real examples that have happened around us reflect the real and persistent prejudice against Chinese students.

In my opinion, the reason for these biases is a lack of understanding of Chinese culture. It's more ignorance than prejudice. Through the project at Melbourne Airport, I want to create an interactive exhibition hall of Chinese food culture, providing a place for Australian tourists to know about Chinese culture in advance, and providing Chinese students with a taste of home.

The functions on the ground floor include a restaurant offering hotpots with a kitchen in the centre, exhibition spaces, a library, food and necessities stores, public lounges, and restrooms. The restaurant on the ground floor offers hotpots, which is a famous shared food in China. On the first floor, there is the second restaurant offering yum cha with a kitchen in the centre, a study room for international students to spend time, temporary accommodations for both staffs working in the terminal and transit passengers to have a rest, more public lounges, and restrooms.

On the roof, there is a roof garden as well as a green roof. The garden has private lounges which require booking and public lounges as activity rooms for everyone. The plants on the roof not only create a garden view for the visitors but also have sustainable use for the whole building. They help to control the interior temperature to reduce the use of air-conditioners in order to reduce electricity usage. The void spaces on the roof are the sun cones which is made of metal frame and glass panels. They run from the roof to the ground floor to bring natural sunlight to the interior of the building.

Considering the important place of mountains and water in traditional Chinese art, I incorporated these two elements into this project. Rainwater is allowed to go down along the void spaces to the pond at the bottom. The sun cones are connected by the rivers inside the building. The walls of exhibition spaces are designed as the mountain shape, to create a half-covered sense and a layered feeling while passengers are walking pass by.

The structure of the building is made of steel columns and beams to support the structure with thinner timber columns to provide secondary support. The facade of the building is mainly made of glass and steel frames, bringing a soft and bright atmosphere and allowing natural light.