Browsing: Shenzhen

Exterior render

The skylines of the world´s most important cities (except for Dubai I guess) are shaped by the typical office tower. The reason is simple: it provides a flexible floor plan, with an economical structural system. “Bang for the buck” if you want to call it. To address lighting and cooling issues that these tower traditionally have, electric lighting and air conditioning were the solution.

But in times when energy is a big issue, we can no longer design buildings that depend on high consumption to provide a comfortable working environment, specially in tropical weathers. And this is what BIG had as a design principle for the Shenzhen International Energy Mansion competition they just won, proposing a tower based on an efficient and well-proven floor plan, enclosed in a skin specifically modified and optimized for the local climate.

Exterior render

We propose to enhance the sustainable performance of the building drastically by only focusing on its envelope, the façade.

We propose to make the Shenzhen Energy Mansion the first specimen of a new species of office buildings that exploit the buildings interface with the external elements – sun, daylight, air humidity, wind – as a source to create a maximum comfort and quality inside.

The Shenzhen Energy Mansion will appear as a subtle mutation of the classic skyscraper – a natural evolution rather than a desperate revolution.

More details on how this facade works, along with more information after the break:

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Chaired by Arata Isozaki, the jury unanimously chose Steven Holl Architects as the winning firm for the design of the Shenzhen master plan (We recently shared Morphosis’ proposal earlier on AD).  Holl’s concept is based on tropical skyscrapers as “Shade Machines with a Social Bracket” which connect the towers and the street level using a horizontal structure containing public programs and a rooftop water garden.

More about the winning proposal after the break. read more »

Morphosis Architects

Morphosis just shared with us their proposal for the Four Towers in One Competition.  The competition (which Steven Holl Architects ultimately won) asked participants to design an office tower complex for the new Shenzhen Stock Exchange Headquarters in the Futian commercial business district.  The area was in need of a unified urban plan that would include the Headquarters for the new office towers of Shenzhen Media Group, China Construction Bank, China Insurance Group, and Southern & Bosera Funds.  For Morphosis’ proposal, rather than creating various disconnected vertical skyscrapers, the project aims to create one “cohesive, interwoven district.”  By conceiving the sites as 3-dimensional envelopes rather than flat 2-dimensional footprints, the buildings can be interwoven to “facilitate a network of interlocking forms reminiscent of the venerated Chinese puzzle.”

More images and further project description after the break. read more »

Shenzhen Crystal Island @ OMA / Ole Scheeren

Shenzhen is one of the most active cities in China, and was recently appointed “City of Design” by the UNESCO (2008).  A recent competition for Crystal Island, located in the center of the city, envisions the envisions the Shenzhen Creative Center, an iconic project in front of the city hall.

The project, won by OMA in collaboration with chinese firm Urbanus, includes  a major new cultural center, transport hub, and public landmark. The Shenzhen Creative Center takes advantage of such a central location, and disaggregate the program over a 20-hectare landscape of parks and gardens, on which clusters of pavilions and small buildings form “Design Villages” creating a micro urban system which includes buildings for Design Administration, Tourism Center, buildings for design retail and expo and a design campus. It also includes a big open space, the Ceremonial Plaza.

All these buildings and open spaces are connected by an elevated pedestrian system, the “Ring Connector”, which also connects to existing and future train and subway stations.

At the center of this circular project, a spherical void becomes a landmark for the city: the Shenzhen Eye.

The disaggregation of the program on such an active area has the potential to mix the creative industry with the rest of the city’s activities, potentiating  multiplicity, permeability, and openness towards creative activity.

The project collaboration between OMA and Urbanus includes the young Ole Scheeren and Rem Koolhaas, and Urbanus partner Meng Yan, with a team lead by OMA Associates Dongmei Yao and Anu Leinonen.

After the break, a schematic model of the program relations and another rendering.

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Dutch architects Mecanoo recently revealed their vision for transforming Longgang, a district of Shenzhen, China, into a thriving economic center.   Their master plan calls for the growing city to be redesigned to include 8,000 residences and over 4.3 million square feet for commercial functions.

Project description and more images after the break.

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