Archinect - News

Heatherwick Studio opens ceramics-rich Xi’an CCBD development in China

2024-12-18T16:08:00-05:00

Heatherwick Studio has updated the new Xi’an Centre Culture Business District upon its first public opening after sharing details of the project with Archinect last November.

The development occupies space between the ruins of the Temple of Heaven and the famed Shaanxi TV Tower. Central to its design is the artistic heritage of ceramics in the region. A nod to the historical presence of the Terracotta Army can be seen in the exterior tiled cladding on each of its buildings’ facades.

Photo credit: Qingyan Zhu

This confers an inviting tactile impression that will further lure its users. The studio’s founder, Thomas Heatherwick, says it also results in an "unexpected three-dimensional urban landscape" equalling 155,000 square meters (or more than 1.6 million square feet).

Photo credit: Qingyan Zhu

Within its pedestrian-centric "sensory experience" comprised of a retail podium, offices, a hotel, and apartments, activity converges around a central plaza with a 187-foot high vertical park ...

MAD completes ‘flying saucer-shaped’ installation for China’s Guangdong Nanhai Land Art Festival

2024-12-17T11:22:00-05:00

MAD Architects has unveiled The Never Hut, an interactive installation at the Guangdong Nanhai Land Art Festival 2024 in Yanqiao Village, Foshan City, China. Set in a village with over 600 years of history, the installation reimagines a former elementary school playground into a community space for rest and connection.

Image credit: Zhu Yumeng

Inspired by Yanqiao Village’s Qing Dynasty architecture, river systems, and its iconic banyan tree, The Never Hut features a flying saucer-shaped structure supported by three tentacle-like forms crafted from local fishing nets. The design responds to environmental elements, swaying subtly with the breeze to create a dynamic relationship between movement and stillness.

Image credit: Zhu Yumeng

The installation’s bright, colorful eaves provide a shaded, circular space, encouraging interaction among villagers and visitors. The scheme’s playful aesthetic contrasts with the historic surroundings, establ...

Zaha Hadid Architects continues work on Chengdu's 'Unicorn Island' tech hub

2024-12-17T09:35:00-05:00

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has updated their progress on the Unicorn Island tech hub development in Chengdu, China. The 165.5-acre project delivers worker housing and office/research space for 70,000. Buildings are arranged in clusters and established "organically" along a radial distribution since the project began completing its first buildings in January 2020. The master plan is located in the Tianfu New Area. The firm also completed work on the Chengdu Science Fiction Museum in the city last October.

Sculptural Façade of Zaha Hadid Architects' Shenzhen Institute of Financial Technology takes shape

2024-12-13T16:40:00-05:00

Zaha Hadid Architects’ upcoming Shenzhen Institute of Financial Technology Tower is taking shape. Construction work on the 46-story structure’s sculptural façade has begun.

Image: Xue Liang

Located on a narrow site in the center of Shenzhen’s Futian district, the tower aims to accommodate the Institute’s ongoing expansion to serve China’s growing fintech industry.

Image: Xue Liang

The roughly 818,000-square-foot building will house research and development laboratories, technology exchange, data centers, and a training campus, together with management, support, and administrative departments.

Image: Xue Liang

The tower’s composition is defined by its surrounding urban environment. Its volume features set-backs, which were determined by mapping and modeling the annual paths of sunlight across the site. The set-backs optimize the amount of direct sunlight that reaches the surrounding streets, public plazas, and buildings. In addition, the tower’s envelope is set to incorporate high perfo...

Wuhan ski resort rises with terraced pixels and swooping form by CLOU architects

2024-12-11T00:42:00-05:00

The Wuhan Ski Resort, located in the Huangpi district of Wuhan, China, has emerged as a new landmark in the region, offering a fusion of sports, entertainment, and retail within a striking architectural framework. Designed by CLOU Architects, the 178,000-square-meter complex integrates a broad array of functions, including a half-kilometer-long indoor ski slope, retail precincts, outdoor carnival areas, and lakeside leisure zones. The resort reflects a growing interest in snow sports in China, fueled in part by the popularity of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

An overhead perspective highlights the sweeping architectural form of the ski slope and the colorful retail pavilions lining the central lake. © Shrimp Studio

The architecture employs a modular façade system composed of “three-dimensional pixels,” unifying the visual language across the various structures. This terraced aesthetic is both functional and expressive, providing a cohesive identity to the diverse building typolog...

Archinect入驻微信，小红书平台 / Archinect launches on WeChat and RED in China

2024-11-27T19:35:00-05:00

Archinect is thrilled to announce our official debut on two of China’s leading social media platforms—WeChat and RED (Xiaohongshu). This milestone marks an important step in Archinect’s 27-year mission of connecting the global architecture community. With an official presence on these platforms, we aim to establish closer connections with Chinese-speaking architects and design enthusiasts.

Since its founding in 1997, Archinect has been dedicated to fostering meaningful connections among architects worldwide. By launching on WeChat and RED, we’re excited to bring Archinect’s distinctive voice to China’s thriving architecture and design scene while introducing exclusive content tailored for our growing audience.

Follow Archinect on WeChat

WeChat is China’s premier all-in-one platform for messaging, digital publishing, and social media, with over 1 billion active users. Through our official WeChat account, we’ll deliver the latest architectural news, interviews, and updates, tailored t...

Kengo Kuma and Associates completes craft-inspired UCCA Clay Museum in China

2024-11-25T14:02:00-05:00

Kengo Kuma and Associates has updated progress on the brand new UCCA Clay Museum in Jiangsu province, China, a month after the project was completed in Yixing, the country’s renowned "ceramic capital."

Image: © Fangfang Tian, courtesy Kengo Kuma and Associates

The museum is covered by textured ceramic panels with glazed color gradations that change with the sun and sits on a wooden shell structure whose sculptural volume reflects the form of the region’s Shushan mountains while sheltering usable open space underneath.

Image: © Fangfang Tian, courtesy Kengo Kuma and Associates

The design also uses a dragon kiln as a metaphor while calling to the small ateliers, a canal, and surrounding ceramics factory complex located to either side. Each of the 3,600 ceramic facade panels was handmade by a local artisan and some showcase engravings made by local schoolchildren. Kuma says this communicates a sense of the "warmth of craftsmanship."

Image: © Eiichi Kano, courtesy of Kengo Kuma and Associ...

MAD updates construction progress on new Lishui Airport in China

2024-11-24T08:00:00-05:00

MAD Architects is wrapping up work on their new Lishui (LIJ) Airport in Zhejiang Province, China. The project, which is expected to be delivered by the end of the year, yields an approximately 129,000-square-foot terminal that will help serve an expected five million travelers by the year 2050. The design is meant a aviary metaphor set against a mountainous landscape.

Ma Yansong described it as being "not greedy for big, but pursuing convenience and humanity, and pursuing a dialogue with the natural environment."

MAD says it likewise "redefines how infrastructure can be both functional and deeply tied to the land it inhabits." Another soon-to-be-completed project in China, the Hainan Science Museum, will open in 2025 as per our last update this May.

OPEN Architecture's coastal cultural center Sun Tower opens in Yantai

2024-11-04T08:00:00-05:00

OPEN Architecture’s striking, cone-shaped cultural venue, Sun Tower, has officially opened in Yantai, China. Situated along the coast of the Yellow Sea, the structure encompasses an outdoor theater, exhibition spaces, library, café and bar, and a special semi-outdoor observation deck. Its design was informed by the passage of the sun.

Photo: Jonathan Leijonhufvud

Sun Tower provides a much needed cultural hub for the growing population of Yantai's Yeda Development Zone. Established in 1984, the Zone transformed the area, which consisted mainly of fishing villages, into a district of industry and tourism.

Photo: Jonathan Leijonhufvud

OPEN Architecture conceived the project’s design as a celebration of the area’s historical connection to the sun and sea. It is one of the earliest regions in China where ancient sun-worshiping occurred and where Ming Dynasty-era watchtowers were erected. The structure’s design also features a contemporary take on the typology of lighthouses.

Photo: Jonatha...

SOM breaks ground on new 53-story office project in Shenzhen

2024-10-16T15:11:00-04:00

Another important new project for Shenzhen—the SOM-designed CIMC Global Headquarters—just broke ground on its path to a 2029 completion. By that time, the 53-story, 886-foot tower will begin welcoming the first of its 60,000 anticipated daily users. Located in the Qianhai commercial district, the design targets both LEED and WELL Platinum certifications.

SOM (currently hiring for three project manager positions on Archinect Jobs) also recently broke ground on the $336 million new NJPAC redevelopment scheme with Weiss/Manfredi in Newark, New Jersey.

Image: Atchain © SOM

Zaha Hadid Architects updates progress on Shenzhen Science and Technology Museum construction

2024-10-10T10:26:00-04:00

Zaha Hadid Architects is moving towards the end of construction for the Shenzhen Science and Technology Museum.

What will become the "pearl" of the city’s Guangming Science City district is just a few short months from completion. When it opens, it will yield about 1.35 million square feet of learning and exhibition space wrapped in a high-performance envelope that emerges from Guangming Park to address the city to the east orientation.

ZHA tells us: "The museum’s procurement, full life-cycle performance and adaptability for future configuration are also evaluated and assessed to reduce embodied carbon and achieve the highest Three-Star rating of China’s Green Building Evaluation Standard."

Neri&Hu complete new Shanghai Performing Arts Center, challenging traditional entertainment venue design

2024-09-25T18:43:00-04:00

Neri&Hu has designed a new performing arts space for Shanghai with 2,500 seats and a multipurpose space they feel will challenge ostentatious tropes latent in 21st-century iterations of the typology.

Located in Shanghai’s busy Qiantan commercial area, the New Bund 31 Performing Arts Center shines as a cultural beacon amidst a forest of tall buildings. Neri&Hu chose to conceptualize its interior as an 'arena' in the Classical sense, arranging a stacked layer of arches to frame the venue’s performance space and five-story atrium.

Photo by Pedro Pegenaute

The arches are repeated on the outside in bronze-toned cassettes lining the ground-level facade. Back inside, bronze is used again in the bathroom fixtures. Copper finishes line the elevators to floating balconied seating boxes, and the the VIP lounge made out of perforated bricks.

Photo by Pedro Pegenaute

Set against this is the design of a smaller black box exhibition space component that services the theater's MICE (meetings, incen...

PAO and Liu Kecheng revitalize old porcelain factory in China with new ‘plugin’ architecture

2024-09-19T12:29:00-04:00

A team led by Liu Kecheng Design Studio and the People’s Architecture Office (PAO) has completed a regeneration and redesign of an old porcelain factory in the Imperial Kiln Historic District of Jingdezhen, China. Using what PAO calls a ‘Plugin Architecture’ approach, the project saw the placing of architectural insertions within and adjacent to existing building, giving new use to the site while respecting historic elements.

Image credit: PAO

Image credit: Zhuyumeng

The porcelain factory speaks to the wider history of Jingdezhen, whose porcelain production stretches back over 1000 years and earned it the title of China’s ‘Porcelain Capital.’ To reactivate the factory, PAO and Liu Kecheng designed a modern structure to form a focal point of the site. Topped by a double-pitched roof, the three-story glass building houses exhibition spaces and a cafe.

Image credit: Zhuyumeng

Image credit: PAO

“The transparency of the glass enclosure introduces a sense of openness, contrasting with the sol...

Zaha Hadid Architects updates mixed-use Taikang Financial Centre's construction in Wuhan

2024-09-17T18:19:00-04:00

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA)’s Taikang Financial Centre is off and running in Wuhan, China. The construction update posted this past week to the firm’s Instagram shows progress on three ultimately glass-enclosed cores separated by a lush "urban canyon" that envelopes skybridge-connected towers of 52, 50, and 47 floors separately within the Hankou Riverside Business District.

Its design loans from the previous Leeza SOHO tower finished in 2019 in Beijing's Fengtai financial precinct. The firm had previously announced the mixed-use project's completion for 2025 but now says it's 'TBC' along with other underway developments in the region on its web page.

New Beijing Performing Arts Center rises from its historic waterside site with curtain-like forms

2024-09-11T16:40:00-04:00

A new performing arts complex designed by Perkins&Will, in partnership with Schmidt Hammer Lassen, has opened in Beijing. Located in the city’s southeast district, Tongzhou, the Beijing Performing Arts Center sits along the banks of the Grand Canal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, anchoring a recently designated cultural district, which also includes a museum, a library, and extensive parklands.

Image: Zhu Yumeng

The roughly 1.3 million-square-foot complex comprises an opera house, a theater, and a concert hall, along with a multipurpose hall and an outdoor stage.

Image: Zhu Yumeng

Its design recalls the site’s history as a commercial shipping and storage hub by referencing the rooflines of the storehouses that formerly populated the area and the sails of traditional canal boats. The forms also evoke a theater curtain parting at the start of a performance.

Image: Zhu Yumeng

The Center’s structures are unified through a broad, elevated platform that can be accessed from ...

BIG's garden-like Suzhou 'art oasis' tops out

2024-08-09T13:45:00-04:00

Another museum project in China from BIG, the 646,000-square-foot Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art, topped out recently ahead of its scheduled 2025 opening. The project, a "tribute to the rich garden heritage of Suzhou," includes 12 separate small pavilions, which are united by walkways covered by a sheltering envelope of ribboned roof eaves to form a village-like concept. It stands as the centerpiece of the ongoing Jinji Lake redevelopment.

"The result is a manmade maze of plants and artworks to get lost within," Bjarke Ingels commented on the design scheme created in collaboration with ARTS Group and Front Inc. "Its nodular logic only becomes distinctly discernible when viewed from the gondolas above."

View this post on Instagram A post shared by BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group (@big_builds)

Safdie Architects stacks vertical gardens in new Shanghai tower complex

2024-07-22T16:07:00-04:00

Safdie Architects has shared photos of their latest contribution to Shanghai's Luwan district, the new LuOne Mixed-Use Complex, after its construction was completed in the past year.

Featuring an eight-story bronze colonnade-lined retail component and a 35-story office tower, the project “answers the pressing need for connection to nature and a place of community within Shanghai’s urban core,” in the words of Senior Partner Christopher Mulvey.

Image: Shao Feng. Courtesy of Safdie Architects.

Accordingly, the tower’s southwestern edge includes a glass-enclosed “corner garden” running vertically with a series of seven four-story garden spaces stacked to create the appearance of plant life ascending or “climbing” the length of its facade.

Image: Shao Feng. Courtesy of Safdie Architects.

The 484,000-square-foot tower was designed to complete the program, which began with the construction of the 1.5 million-square-foot retail galleria in 2018...

Neri&Hu's newest Blue Bottle Shanghai space shelters a community of coffee drinkers from the daily grind

2024-07-18T18:25:00-04:00

A thought-provoking new café design in Shanghai’s mixed-use Columbia Circle complex from Neri&Hu for the Blue Bottle Coffee chain has caught our eye after being completed earlier this year.

Executed at just 1,680 square feet within the leftover footprint evacuated by a former residential building, the new 'The Imprint' café provides customers a respite from the blistering pace of city life with a welcoming sense of 'home' in line with the client's brand identity and community values.

Photo by Zhu Runzi

“Even if the building is no longer visible in the physical world, the traces it leaves in our individual or collective memories serve as a source of nostalgia and remembering,” the firm states in their project description.

Photo by Zhu Runzi

Within its white suspended massing, the impression of a corrugated roof's mold is used to manifest a sentimental attachment to the space in dialogue with the remaining composition of recycled clay bricks and plaster.

Photo by Zhu Runzi

"Despite the...

MAD Architects updates progress on Tencent Cloud HQ in Shenzhen

2024-07-11T20:36:00-04:00

MAD Architects has shared a construction update for the easternmost portion of e-commerce giant Tencent's new Shenzhen headquarters, which is currently under construction for 2025. The project is located in the east of Dachan Bay Island, Qianhai, and comprises five blocks equal to about 2.47 acres, according to the project description.

Rendering: MAD Architects

This new 775,000-square-foot "cloud" building is joined by the Büro Ole Scheeren-designed Tencent Helix complex on the same campus that was announced in December.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dang Qun (@qun_dang)

Stateside, MAD's California office is currently featured in our highlight of Los Angeles area employers. Two Intermediate Architect roles are open, working with the office that designed the forthcoming Lucas Museum, One River North, and other significant projects out West in recent years.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ma Yansong (@mayansong_mad)
...

Büro Ole Scheeren designs mixed-use Scenic City for Shenzhen's high-tech core

2024-07-10T17:15:00-04:00

Büro Ole Scheeren has shared images and project details of their underway mixed-used Scenic City design at the Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base in China.

As the new HQ for e-commerce giant JD.com, the project will feature prominently in Shenzhen’s Nanshan District when it is completed by the end of 2027. Scenic City will be realized at two million square feet after construction began in early 2022.

Image: © Büro Ole Scheeren

Reaching a maximum height of 200 meters (656.1 feet), the program comprises two towers for offices, hotel, retail, public facilities, and cultural uses connected via a podium and adjacent landscaped "urban spine."

Image: © Büro Ole Scheeren

Each tower’s facade features both vertical and horizontal voided openings that allow for the inclusion of open-air terraces meant to accommodate the region’s humid climate. This breaks apart their volumes while suggesting a contemporary ziggurat climbing vertically from the podium base to the roofline. A subtler waterfall...

MVRDV delivers 'diamond'-encrusted facade for Tiffany’s newest Shanghai location

2024-07-08T14:09:00-04:00

MVRDV has shared details of its latest design, the new Tiffany & Co. location in Shanghai’s Taikoo Li Qiantan retail development, featuring a glittering imitation of a diamond-encrusted facade.

Image © Wen Studio

The firm’s newest project for the jeweler follows last year's coral-inspired 3D design at the Singapore Changi Airport and utilizes a screen made from 6,988 handcrafted glass 'diamonds' to produce an effect that offers many variances depending on the time of day.

Behind the screen, an in-store café and accompanying balcony separate the showroom areas and private salons that are included on every floor. The 3.3-pound glass jewels are suspended from steel cables and given a mirrored steel finish to complete the effect, held together finally by specially designed steel fixtures positioned to prevent them from moving or spinning on their supports.

The facade component is completely dismantleable and will have its parts reused or recycled afte...

Three landmark buildings by OLI Architecture: Your Next Employer?

2024-07-01T12:11:00-04:00

Following our previous visit to San Francisco-based STUDIO BANAA, we are moving our Meet Your Next Employer series to New York this week to explore the work of OLI Architecture.

Founded in 2010 and based in Manhattan, the firm has amassed a portfolio grounded in expertise in civic, institutional, cultural, and museum buildings. The firm describes its approach as to “to investigate the specific nature of each project” with a design process that merges parametric models and computational analyses with local construction practices.

Over on Archinect Jobs, the firm is currently hiring for a Project Architect at their New York City studio. For candidates interested in applying for the position, or anybody interested in learning more about the firm’s output, we have rounded up three landmark projects by OLI Architecture that exemplify the firm’s ethos.

Mu Xin Art Museum. Image courtesy: OLI Architecture

Mu Xin Art Museum, Tongxiang, China

The Mu Xin Art Museum is dedicated to the work of a...

China is planning the world’s largest particle collider to rival CERN

2024-06-26T17:18:00-04:00

China’s plan to construct what would be the world’s new largest particle collider, pending major funding hurdles, is becoming more clear after a technical design report was submitted for the estimated $5.2 billion project. The 100-kilometer Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) is meant to rival CERN’s plans for the Future Circular Collider (FCC) in Europe and would require only three years to complete following its potential commencement in 2027.

Scientific American informs us: “Many of the components that are planned for China’s mega machine are already being tested at other facilities in the country [...] Given that China is already home to a collider that is similar to the CEPC — the Beijing Electron Positron Collider — [and] IHEP might now have more expertise in this area than does CERN.”

Honoring the achievements of China’s first female architect one hundred years later

2024-06-24T17:38:00-04:00

On May 18, 2024, the University of Pennsylvania awarded Lin Huiyin (林徽因) with an architecture degree, exactly 100 years after they refused to admit her into their undergraduate program because she was a woman. [...] With the news of Lin’s belated degree quickly going viral on Chinese social media, her name is again in the public eye. It is therefore a good opportunity to revisit her legacy and correct the prejudice and stereotypes that have overshadowed Lin’s story.

Lin Huiyin’s story was included in the Weitzman School’s 2022 exhibition ‘Building in China: A Century of Dialogues on Modern Architecture,’ which examined her and her classmates' influence in China after 1920. Often detracting from it are accounts of her personal life and relationship with Liang Sicheng. Lin’s stellar academic coursework went unrewarded even after UPenn’s decision to grant credit to female Bachelor of Architecture students after 1934. Her granddaughter, Yu Kui, accepted the diploma on her behalf at the school's commencement ceremonies last month.

On the evening of May 18th, local time in the United States, at the graduation ceremony of the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design, Lin Huiyin's granddaughter, Yu Kui, accepted the long-delayed degree certificate on behalf of Lin Huiyin from the dean of… pic.twitter.com/TZBPIsARUF
— Hola Fujian (@HolaFujian) May 19, 2024

MAD Architects completes the ZGC International Innovation Center in Beijing

2024-06-18T20:17:00-04:00

MAD Architects has announced the completion of the ZGC International Innovation Center in Beijing. Spanning a total floor area of approximately 699,654 square feet, the structure was designed to serve as the permanent venue for the annual Zhongguancun Forum (ZGC Forum).

Photo: Zhu Yumeng

The forum is an international conference centered around innovation and technology. It is held annually in the Zhongguancun area of Beijing’s Haidian District, which is a major tech hub that hosts numerous high-tech companies, startups, and research institutions.

Photo: CreatAR Images

According to the architects, the Center, which takes on the shape of a clover, was designed to foster a deep connection between humanity, the city, and the environment.

Photo: Arch Exist

It blends into its surroundings through an accessible, approximately 182,986-square-foot green roof park, consisting of trees, gardens, walkways, and architectural features, that extends the nearby gardens and hills. The roof, characteri...

MAD updates construction progress on Hainan Science Museum before 2025 debut

2024-05-28T16:56:00-04:00

Ma Yansong/MAD Architects has posted a construction update for the Hainan Science Museum in China ahead of its anticipated 2025 opening. The vertically spiraling design works to combat the phenomenon of museum fatigue, appearing as though an emerging cloud bank while distributing spaces efficiently across five floors and a total of 46,530 square meters (500,800 square feet).

This will form a key part of the site's cultural component, contrasting the many sports stadium designs that surround it in coastal Haikou National Wetland Park. It mirrors MAD's previous efforts on the Wormhole Library located nearby on Haikou Bay. Another eye-catching design, the firm's ripped-facade One River North development in Denver (MAD's second completed residential project in the U.S.), also passed a major milestone recently as it nears its realization.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by MAD Architects (@madarchitects)

Foster + Partners debuts Changfeng mixed-use development in Shanghai

2024-04-29T14:30:00-04:00

A new mixed-use design from Foster + Partners has been revealed for Shanghai’s Science and Technology Finance hub as part of the larger Shanghai 2035 master plan. Located in the city’s Putuo District, the new Changfeng development will boast an affordable housing component, retail offerings, offices, and public facilities, all centered around a 54,000-square-foot new cultural destination called Jia Art they say is inspired by the "spring blessing" flower that's endemic to the local park.

Image: Foster + Partners

A central greenway stitches the program together from the entry points on its north-south axis. Inside the arts center, which repeats the petal-like form and surrounds a central plaza, users can enjoy public areas illuminated by a crowning glass roof.

Image: Foster + Partners

Offices are located north of the central axis and include a range of collaborative amenity spaces. Multi-level terraces, double-height sky atriums, and roo...

New scientific study provides vital data on sinking Chinese cities

2024-04-23T15:08:00-04:00

The toll of urbanization in China has been documented in a new paper published in the journal Science by a team of researchers from different institutions around the country. Using a method called spaceborne synthetic aperture radar interferometry (or InSAR), they were able to establish the rate at which land is subsiding in major cities, affecting over a third (36%) of the country's urban population.

The paper's abstract states that 45% of metro areas surveyed are now subsiding faster than 3 millimeters per year, with another 16% subsiding faster than 10 millimeters per year. By 2120, upwards of 26% of all coastal lands will have elevations below sea level. The source of the sinking is the combined weight of buildings and the depletion of groundwater around urban areas. "Our results underscore the necessity of enhancing protective measures to mitigate potential damages from subsidence," the authors stated.

These latest findings could potentially have bearings on the work of Turensc...

Foster + Partners tops out Shenzhen skyscraper inspired by rock formations and paper folding

2024-04-15T13:50:00-04:00

The Foster + Partners-designed China Merchants Bank Headquarters in Shenzhen has topped out. The office tower forms part of a wider mixed-use development, which, when completed, will form a “new city quarter” in Shenzhen.

Image credit: zhangchao via Foster + Partners

Externally, the tower is clad in glass and stainless steel, the result of an “iterative modeling process to minimize the energy consumption of active systems by carefully balancing solar shading, daylight and thermal loads,” according to the team. The tower’s north facade is inspired by rock formations in China with stacked bays varying in height, while the south-facing facade is inspired by the geometries of traditional paper folding.

Image credit: zhangchao via Foster + Partners

“The new tower is a unique addition to Shenzhen’s urban fabric and will be an enduring symbol of China Merchants Bank,” Foster + Partners Head of Studio Grant Brooker said about the scheme. “The building’s wide curved windows offer spectacular v...

Foster + Partners unveils latest Apple Store concept for Shanghai

2024-04-03T13:32:00-04:00

The latest Apple Store retail concept from Foster + Partners has been completed in Shanghai. The firm’s newest design for the company is located in Jing’an Park and forms the centerpiece of an urban regeneration that creates a permeable new connection between its site and the adjacent historic Jing’an Temple.

Stefan Behling, Head of Studio, Foster + Partners, describes: “We are delighted to have been given this great responsibility to create this transformative project for Shanghai. Our design reimagines the original plaza as a vibrant new public space, which provides places to sit and relax, drawing people in and respectfully enhancing the setting for the beautiful Jing’an Temple.”

Image courtesy Foster + Partners

Terraced seating placed on top of an elevated skywalk with gallery spaces gives the public a direct view of the Three Kingdoms era temple, framed by seasonal planting and Padang Light stone finishes that are repeated in the store’s walls and flooring.

Image courtesy Foste...