Neri&Hu transforms Beijing missile factory into car workshop

Shanghai studio Neri&Hu has converted a former missile factory in Beijing to create a car repair garage and offices with an industrial-style metal staircase, mesh cages and painted brickwork.
Inside The Garage, a mechanics workshop catering to Beijing's some 7 million vehicles is flanked by offices and a cafe.
Neri&Hu wanted to preserve as much of the original building as possible, while creating a new interior that recaptures the "allure and magic" once associated with with the car industry.
To do this, architects Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu juxtaposed an industrial palette of metalwork and grey paintwork with refined walnut timber and brushed bronze elements that recalls the craftsmanship of antique cars.
Their aim was to challenge the "vulgar typology"of the car garage, to "inject a sense of warmth into an industrial context, and to portray the seductive side of the ubiquitous modern machine".
Three of the building's existing grey brick walls remain intact, while a new exposed black-steel structure extends the building on its western side to create a new floor.
Here, offices, cafe and car lift are placed in separate steel and mesh modular boxes, intended to reference industrial storage facilities. A new staircase with black metal panelling connects the three floors of the volume.
"The project as a whole is conceived as a workshop space, partly raw and partly refined, it is activated throughout with the energy and spirit of the industrial era," said Neri&Hu.
A cafe with concrete counters and an open-plan office occupy the ground and first floor levels of the extension. On the first floor, cafe seating is wrapped by a black-metal banister, while private and open-plan office spaces occupy separate cubes. Their mesh enclosures offer workers views to the car workshop in the original building to the rear.
"The cafe and the automobile workshop together, a somewhat surreal juxtaposition of functions begins to generate moments of spectacle," said the architects. "Patrons of the cafe can voyeuristically steal glimpses of the cars and mechanics, marvelling at their performance while enjoying a delightful refreshment."
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[@rr7firefly]

No employee clutter, no personal items, no oil cans, no left-out tools in the mechanics' area and no office equipment in the other area.
What does it look like when people move into the place?

[@scottmead854]

Neri & Hu's buildings are all visually stunning. But... at least from the promo videos that I see, they're a bit shallow, no? All the buildings look uncannily similar regardless of the context. They also feature actors and music that have got nothing to do with the context as well.

[@robertarisz8464]

Nicer than any place I worked in in Beijing in the 1990s