The Organizing Committee of the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale Of Urbanism\Architecture announced the program for the fourth edition of the Biennale, which takes place December 8 to February 18 and is organized by the Chief Curator of the 2011 Biennale Terence Riley.

Selected from an international call for proposals, Mr. Riley is the first non-Chinese curator for the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale Of Urbanism\Architecture. Riley is an architect and partner in the architectural firm K/R, and the former director of Miami Art Museum. As the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art New York, he played a key role in overseeing MoMA’s 2004 expansion project. More information on the event after the break. read more »

Courtesy of MAPA

Architects: MAPA
Location: Shenzhen, China
Project Team: Hoo Khuen Hin (Leader), Lim Ching Tung, Armando Atiencio, Ma Wei, Wu Xijia, Gao Chunyang, Liu Changxin
Client: Shenzhen Zhonghe Industry
Project Year: 2011
Project Area: 160,000 sqm (Total GFA)
Photographs: Courtesy of MAPA

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Photo by low.lighting - http://www.flickr.com/photos/low-lighting/

The emergence of China on the global economic stage has been discussed at nauseum in myriad publications. But this emergence has had an impact on the world of architecture, providing a testing ground where architects can experiment with new ideas about sustainability and urban growth. These new ideas have been realized in recently completed structures, and more are just beginning construction or have been proposed for the future. More on these new buildings after the break.

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Courtesy of Steven Holl Architects

Steven Holl Architects recently received an American Architecture Award for 2011 for the Horizontal Skyscraper-Vanke Center in Shenzhen, China.The awards, administered annually by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Center for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies honor ‘new and cutting-edge design’ and aim to promote ‘the best of new architecture and urban design.’ More on the project after the break. read more »

© OMA

The NASDAQ equivalent Shenzhen Stock Exchange by OMA, continues to progress forward nearing completion. The latest photographs of the new building, which poses a strong representation of capitalism in China, highlight the robust exoskeletal grid and the and complexity of construction.

“For millennia, the solid building stands on a solid base; it is an image that has survived modernity. Typically, the base anchors a structure and connects it emphatically to the ground. The essence of the stock market is speculation: it is based on capital, not gravity. In the case of Shenzhen’s almost virtual stock market, the role of symbolism exceeds that of the program – it is a building that has to represent the stock market, more than physically accommodate it. It is not a trading arena with offices, but an office with virtual organs that suggest and illustrate the process of the market.”

- OMA

More construction photographs of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange after the break.

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© Christian Gahl

To mark the occasion of the Universiade, which will take place from 12th to 23rd August 2011, the Universiade sports center and Bao’an stadium will be opened tomorrow in Shenzhen, southern China. The international competitions to come up with a design for the buildings were won in 2006 and 2007 by the designs of Architects von Gerkan Marg and Partners (gmp). The Universiade sports center consists of a stadium, a multifunctional hall and a swimming pool. The stadium in the Bao’an district is designed as an athletics stadium. However, during the 2011 Universiade, it is being used for football matches.

Architect: Architects von Gerkan Marg and Partners (gmp)
Location: Shenzhen, China
Photographs: Christian Gahl, Stephan Schütz, gmp

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© Doug & Wolf

Architects: Mecanoo
Location: Shezhen, China
Client: Shenzhen Vanke Real Estate
Project Area: 90,000 sqm
Artistic Impressions: Doug & Wolf

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Courtesy of MVRDV+ Zhubo

The new headquarters building for the Guosen Securities Corporation in Shenzhen, China, is to be the new symbol for the dynamic corporation that needs to be energy efficient and a pleasurable working environment in the new century. The Guosen Securities Tower by MVRDV is a project driven by the creation of good views and direct daylight for every worker in a compact floor plan of 1849m2 where no workplace is further than 11 meters away from the façade. Stacking these floors leads to a 204 meter tall tower with a square floor plan and an elegant, slender volume.

More on this project by MVRDV after the break. read more »

© WORKac

For WORKac’s skyscraper design for the Shenzhen Metro Tower, the architects created a new a new kind of mixed density to promote a sustainable and a diverse stacked city.  This vertical city holds places places of intense urban interchange that combine infrastructure, mixed uses, and public space.  Located at an  intersection with a horizontal crossroads of major boulevards, this vertical interchange between the underground metro, ground-level bus station, shopping podium and the offices and hotel above will essentially be linking the metro with the sky.  ”We call this tower the Interchange – a vertical city that twists together natural green space with ecological systems, structural and functional efficiency with dramatic new forms and technology, while linking the underground to the sky,” added the architects.

More about the project after the break. read more »

© Iwan Baan

The building has recently been awarded a 2011 AIA Institute Honor Award for its architectural creativity and contextual thoughtfulness.    The jury commented, “This project skips along from mound to mound and manipulates the landscape – it builds it up and shapes it into a powerful form above the land with inventive manipulation. The building is shading the landscape and letting it breath – integrated sustainability. A reinvented building type with the building floating over the landscape – dancing on the landscape.”

More information, with more photographs from Iwan Baan, after the break. read more »

© Fuksas

The latest project from Italian architects Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas features a dramatic tower shaped by bold diagonal cuts.   The proposal was awarded first prized for the competition to design Shenzhen’s  Guosen Securities tower, and, typical of the Fuksas pair, the schematic design carries a strong presence with the shear mass of the volume broken down into a more manageable scale thanks to the three-dimensional voids.  The  tower will be the first ecological tall building to be built in Shenzhen.

More images and more about the tower after the break. read more »

Courtesy of Jaeger and Partner Architects, Ltd. + Saltans Architects_International

Shenzhen based Jaeger and Partner Architects, Ltd. and Chicago based saltans architects intl, ltd have collaborated on the winning design solution for the NanFanG University of Science & Technology and New Shenzhen University Technology Park.

The site for the competition is in the rapidly developing Nanshan Dashahe Innovation Corridor in Shenzhen, PRC and directly adjacent to the New Shenzhen University Campus and will comprise of R&D office and light manufacturing, IT incubator space, outsourcing facilities, and business support services. The concept for the master plan is an integral environment for entrepreneurs, researchers and students within an environment for technological innovation and discovery in an above ground building area of 528,000 m2.

More images and descriptions after the break. read more »

© d.teil

In June, we featured Steven Holl’s latest Horizontal Skyscraper which hovers above a landscaped park in Shenzhen, China. Matthias Wolff, an ArchDaily reader and also a contributor to our Flickr roundups, shared some of his photographs of Holl’s building with us.  Wolff, aka d.teil, shot these images at the complex’s opening this past December, when some of the complex’s components – such as the hotel – were still under construction.  Since the grounds are open to the public, the project will truly affect a large scope of people, both natives and visitors of the area.  Wolff’s photos provide a clear understanding of the building’s varying materiality, as well as its situation within the designed terrain. What do you think of Holl’s project?

Check out more photos after the break. read more »

© Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment

There are few things that are more annoying than sitting in bummer to bummer traffic.  Yet, as cities are expanding at rapid rates, our infrastructure simply cannot support the number of people, and so congestion becomes an every day obstacle we have to face.   As Bettina Wassener reported for the New York Times, for one China-based company, Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment,  the vicious cycle of a growing population which leads to more vehicles – and hence, more traffic – needed to be addressed.   And, along came their  super functional, extra-wide (20 ft) and extra-tall ‘Straddling Bus’.  The vehicle runs along fixed tracks and its main compartment is elevated to leave the street clear for cars driving underneath.   Plus, the vehicle is partially powered by the sun via panels on the roof and at bus stops.

More about the Straddling Bus after the break. read more »

© Atelier Hollein

Atelier Hollein shared with us their latest project in Shenzhen, China. It’s a high-rise office building for which they received one of first prizes in the 4in1 Tower Competition in 2009. You can see more images and architect’s description after the break. read more »

© OMA

We first heard about the new Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SSE) building by OMA during the peak of the new chinese construction revolution. Then we saw Rem Koolhaas breaking ground together with the Chinese government, and capitalism in China started to have a tangible representation.

The new building for the NASDAQ equivalent (730 high tech companies & startups, moving over US$500 billion) has now topped out at 246m.

“For millennia, the solid building stands on a solid base; it is an image that has survived modernity. Typically, the base anchors a structure and connects it emphatically to the ground. The essence of the stock market is speculation: it is based on capital, not gravity. In the case of Shenzhen’s almost virtual stock market, the role of symbolism exceeds that of the program – it is a building that has to represent the stock market, more than physically accommodate it. It is not a trading arena with offices, but an office with virtual organs that suggest and illustrate the process of the market.”

- OMA

The project is based on pure volumes, a combination of a tower and a podium suspended 36m high. The podium is one of the biggest cantilevers in the world, an operation that liberates the ground to create a big public plaza which is visually connected (representing the new economic openness) to the lower part of the tower and the podium itself, the places were the stock exchange operations take place. Above the podium, there is a series of office space for internal operations of the SSE, totaling 200,000sqm for the entire building.

The tower’s structure is a robust exoskeletal grid overlayed with a patterned glass skin – the first time such glass has been used for an exterior at this scale. The patterned glass reveals the detail and complexity of construction while creating a mysterious crystalline effect as the tower responds to light: sparkling during bright sunshine, mute on an overcast day, enigmatic at dusk, glimmering during rain and glowing at night.

- OMA

The building is expected to be completed by August, 2011.

Renderings afte the break:

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© Iwan Baan

Our friend and architecture photographer, Iwan Baan , just published on his website some of his recently shot images of Steven Holl’s Horizontal Skyscraper in Shenzhen, China .  The project is a long mixed-use complex which includes office spaces, apartments, a hotel and even a public landscape.  Baan’s photos illustrate Holl’s idea that the “building appears as if it were once floating on a higher sea that has now subsided; leaving the structure propped up high on eight legs.”

Complete photoset at Iwan’s website, more images and more about the project after the break. read more »

The HZ SZ Bi-City Biennale is in full swing (we just featured the Bug Pavilion a few days ago) and the festival’s catchy “‘Bring Your Own Biennale” (BYOB) slogan aims to stimulate “our collective role in the creation of an innovative Bi-City Biennale between Hong Kong and Shenzhen.”  Conversations around the area are focusing on how Hong Kong’s society can make an active imprint on their city’s future.  The BYOB is “at once contextual but also reflective, a unique opportunity to speculate on what our impact on the metropolis could be.”  For the Biennale’s main pavilion, designed by Shiegeru Ban Architects, a paper tube structure provides a semi-open space for events such as forums, workshops and events.

More about the main pavilion after the break.

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© Work AC

WORKac‘s design for a 1-kilometer section of Hua Qiang Bei Road in Shenzhen was awarded first prize.  The design responds to the area’s growing commercial character which has unfortunately created traffic problems. For the proposal, the road becomes a series of “strategic interventions” where “five iconic lanterns”, (twisting bands of required program) create unique, visible destinations through a process of “urban acupuncture”.

More images and more about the design after the break.

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Inspired by insects, the Bug Dome is a small sheltered area used during the SZHK Biennale for underground bands, poetry reading, and discussions, and after the Biennale as an un-official gathering place for illegal workers from the Chinese countryside.  Built on a wasteland of a ruined building site in-between the Shenzhen City Hall and an illegal workers camp, the structure is intended to reveal the connection we share with nature:  ”In large scale, if we learn to understand the connection what the hundreds of millions of hands that are now migrating from the rural China to the modern cities might bring along them, we might be able to ruin the industrial city. We might be able to make the city to be part of nature.”

More about the dome after the break. read more »