Woods Bagot Wins China Southern Airport City

 

Woods Bagot has won the international competition to design China Southern Airport City, in Guangzhou. The design, which totals 3.8 million m2, expands the traditional corporate headquarters to an urban scale, blending business and manufacturing uses with lifestyle and residential components. This new active district will support China Southern Airlines’ brand and continued leadership as Asia’s largest airline.

 

The design establishes a sweeping physical form that unifies the Airport City site  and presents a legible identity that is visible from arriving and departing planes. Within this landscape, landmark buildings, parks, lakes and other features define a series of programmatic “neighbourhoods.”

 

The master plan is split into three precincts – business, cultural, and entertainment, as well as Southern Airlines University. Other aspects include an executive complex including offices, a five-star hotel and VIP club overlooking an expansive lake. Manufacturing, operations and research facilities form a second precinct to the northwest while residential and lifestyle neighbourhoods compose the third precinct along a riverfront.

 

The landscape architectural and ecological concept – designed in close collaboration with Hargreaves Associates and Sherwood Design Engineers – overlays bold sculptural landforms with a series of contemporary urban, academic and residential landscapes.

 

The project draws on expertise from Woods Bagot’s London, San Francisco, Hong Kong and Beijing studios and partners with Hargreaves Associates and Sherwood Design Engineers.

 

*Pictured: Artist impression of the new Woods Bagot Airport City design in Guangzhou.

 

“China Southern Airlines’ vision for a new district that embodies its global leadership and supports ongoing innovation afforded an opportunity to really advance our thinking about the connections between economy, ecology and culture,” said Richard Marshall, Joint CEO/Director of Urban Design at Woods Bagot.

 

Aurecon completes design façade for Shanghai Tower

 

Aurecon and Gensler Architects have celebrated the completion of the design on the façade of what will be China’s tallest building – the 632 metre-tall Shanghai Centre, located in Shanghai’s Lujiazui Financial Centre, beside the JinMao Tower and World Financial Tower. The building will be more than 100 metres taller than the recently completed Shanghai Financial Centre and is designed as a sustainable eco-tower.

 

It boasts a new ‘intelligent skin’, setting a new benchmark in tall building façade design.

 

Aurecon’s façade engineers, with Gensler, developed the design to marry the façade with the structure and services systems while, at the same time, achieving architectural and sustainable goals. The twisted feature of the tower is an innovative upward spiralling design that reduces wind loads and captures rainwater which can be used for the building’s air conditioning and central heating.

 

The building is comprised of a circular central floor plate enveloped by a suspended outer skin triangular in plan, which twists as it ascends. The interstitial spaces between the form are used to create 12 storey atria that act as environmental buffer zones. These ‘sky gardens’ will provide a place to meet, eat and shop, cutting down the time people need to travel on elevators. Aurecon has also undertaken extensive building science and geometric analyses to help resolve the complex issues arising in design.

 

*Pictured: Aurecon’s design facade for the Shanghai Tower.

 

Aurecon was briefed for a façade design that achieves low energy and low carbon in operation and included an integrated renewables strategy.

 

Sustainable green features have included the project development targeting the criteria set down by LEED-NC Rating System and Chinese 3 Star Green Building Rating and Certification System.

 

Concept Master Plan for Dalian Hi-Tech Creative Eco-City

 

GroupGSA is currently masterplanning a of 99 square kilometre-Dalian eco city development site in Liaoning Province and within this site, it is preparing a detailed masterplan for a13km2 eco-town, Shuangtaigou.

 

The Dalian Hi-Tech Creative Eco-City, located in Dalian City, Liaoning Province, is to be a model city with modern infrastructure, an eco-environment and intelligent and superior living environments. It will comprise of a low-carbon sustainable development and will integrate existing settlements, new environmentally sensitive developments and the extensive natural landscape. As a prominent Australian design practice with an international reputation in eco-design, Group GSA was invited to submit a concept master plan for the new eco-city which is to focus on hi-tech creativity and green life-styles within a low carbon landscape.

 

The site is composed of residential, commercial, service, agribusiness and industrial developments with education, medical, aged-care and recreational services, and cultural, health and entertainment facilities.

 

Group GSA’s vision is to create a new eco-city within the norms of traditional Chinese understanding of nature’s natural cycle that will set a benchmark for China’s urban development. The vision introduces the most up-to-date concepts for Integrated Sustainable Eco City Planning Principles.

 

Group GSA was assisted by Prof. Peter Droege of Epolis and CUNDALL.

 

GroupGSA has established its Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise in Shanghai and recently partnered with HASSELL Studio to win the 350,000m2 Xintiandi mixed use development comprising of three office towers and three SOHO residential towers in downtown Shanghai and a retail precinct in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.

 

GroupGSA has completed a masterplan for a new cultural centre in Ningbo. The masterplan includes a live theatre with a seating capacity of 2000, a cinema complex, a film studio and post production facilities, two hotels and a retail precinct.  Work on the live theatre is expected to begin later this year.

 

CatererGoodman announces new office

 

Investment services firm, CatererGoodman Partners China has announced the opening of a new office in Shanghai’s bund district. The new office more than doubles the previous space to allow for the continued strong growth that CatererGoodman Partners has received from clients.

 

Founding Partner, Australian Owen Caterer said the new location would provide a more central location for clients.

 

CatererGoodman Partners is offers financial advisory services focusing on long-term expatriates and returnee Chinese. The firm specializes in assisting clients with all aspects of their investment strategy including listed equities and bonds as well as direct, syndicated and listed property investments and financial planning and consulting.

 

The corporate division of CatererGoodman Partners assists with group planning for life insurance and pension incentives programs. The venture capital division assists China-based growth companies with raising capital for fast growing companies from the venture capital, angel investment and direct private investors.

 

AustCham Beijing Office Relocation

 

The AustCham Beijing Secretariat has relocated to:

Room 910, Tower A, U-Town Office Building, 1 Sanfengbeili, Chaoyangmen Beijing 100020.

中国北京朝阳区朝阳门三丰北里1号悠唐国际写字楼A座910室，邮编100020 ■

 

*If you have any news you would like included in Building Bulletin please email the editor: sophiel@chinaconnections.com.au