PROGRAM_ Commercial
CLIENT_ Citic Developments
AREA_ 38,800 SQM
STATUS_ Complete
CONTRACT_ Architecture, Interior Concept
CREDITS_ Assoc. J.Cheng with UNStudio
Located in the Putuo district in central Shanghai, the concept is designed to provide a lifestyle destination for Shanghai’s young professionals. The venue combines retail, restaurant and office spaces in an organization that rearranges the typical mall into a vertical city center and provides opportunities for shopping, strolling, eating, gathering and relaxing.
The design incorporates elements of ‘old Shanghai’ through geometry, pattern, and materialization and combines these with a contemporary urban experience, thereby creating a destination with a distinctly Shanghai feel.
The existing qualities of the immediate urban surroundings, which include small-scale restaurants and boutique stores, are reflected in the building where they are stacked vertically to populate the envelope with programmatic destinations that can be seen from street level. Inside, elements of street life are mixed with lifestyle retail features and are distributed throughout the building. The organization of the building encourages the visitor to stroll through and explore the different levels of the complex, where retail spaces follow an open layout and are punctuated with small kiosks.
The facade is designed to support the overall design concept of a program facade and to create depth for the building envelope. The use of multi-layered components enables a variety of views towards the surroundings, whilst simultaneously providing functional transparency in specifically located areas.
Based on a hexagonal grid, the facade components follow the articulated geometry of the building and provide constantly changing perspectives.
A gradient transition from bigger to smaller facade components regulates the exposure of the inside to the outside and enhances the main entrance of the building. The facade, therefore, becomes an integrated active layer that can be programmed as display windows, vista points or balconies. On the lower facade, a hexagonal grid consists of diamond-shaped panels that are tied between pins forming a tensioned cladding system. Here the arrangement of the components can change across the facade from single layer to triple layer, up to a depth of 400mm. Constructed from different materials and lit by RGB LEDs these panels create different visual effects: transparent or opaque, colorful or monochrome, reflective or Matt.
The interior derives its character from a central void which cuts through the volume from base to top and is punctuated by a series of rounded plateaus. When seen from below the rounded plateaus resemble a cohesive layered organic structure, however, when looking down from above the programs of the plateaus are revealed.