Five Aedas-designed projects – The Forum, Heartland 66, Novotel Shanghai Hongqiao, Qingdao Lanhai New Harbour City J Life and Main Office Building, Macau Traditional Chinese Medicine Science and Tech Park – received 2015 Cityscape Awards for Emerging Markets for Commercial Project (Built), Mixed Use Project (Future), Leisure & Hospitality Project (Future), Retail Project (Future) and Commercial Project (Future), respectively.

The Forum redevelopment is a holistic design, integrating a new office building, sculpture park and events plaza and thereby revitalising the entire Exchange Square development. The new building opens up the site visually and physically, creating a significant public space designed as a series of stone platforms linked with water features and planting. The design is inspired by precious gems. The perfect cube of the building is dramatically tilted to create a grand entrance from the plaza. The geometry of the tilted plane is resolved into the elegant diamond cut façade of the building. As a Grade-A office in the heart of the Central district, the column-free office interior with its 2.9m of floor-to-ceiling space evokes a tailor-made environment with ample natural daylight from all elevations.

Located in the commercial and business heart of Wuhan, Heartland 66 is a mixed-use development which adopts a concept of ‘infinity loop’ as an association with the Chinese art of knot tie. The concept is transformed into actual retail circulation which appears as the visual feature uniting the three uses. The infinite form of knot is presented in the circulation and roof form, connecting the anchors and destinations with seamless flowing arcades.

Novotel Shanghai Hongqiao is a 350-key hotel occupying a block in the Linkong Park. The design concept is derived from a ‘floating courtyard’ and utilises the verticality of the structure to create a well defined zoning. The relationship among different functions is strongly interactive, transforming the zoning diagram into a building mass with unique yet powerful spatial effect.

Qingdao Lanhai New Harbour City J Life enjoys an excellent location facing the sea. The design is inspired by the forms of Qingdao shale and the steel and forms of the adjacent shipping port. The building connects land and sea and leads the seascape into the interiors to create a distinctive environment.

Main Office Buildings, Macau Traditional Chinese Medicine Science and Tech Park in Zhuhai are two towers representing the Chinese concepts of round Heaven and square Earth. The West building is rectilinear around an atrium with a powerful deconstruction of the lower floors creating shade, porosity and outdoor terraces. The East building flows gently around its twin atriums in counterpoint to its neighbour.

Celebrating excellence in real estate development and architecture, the 2015 Cityscape Awards for Emerging Markets offer international architects and leading real estate developers a prestigious platform from which to communicate a shared vision for the future, from culturally integrated city skylines to sustainable urban communities. Winners were announced on 8 September, 2015 in Dubai.