An international design team made up of MVRDV (overall design), The Jerde Partnership (commercial podium) and ARUP, together with developer Wijaya Karya – Benhil Property, have collaborated to create Peruri 88 – a new landmark icon for Jakarta. Peruri 88 will be a vertical city in one building combining Jakarta´s need for more green spaces with the need for densification. The tower is a 400 meter tall mix use project with retail, offices, housing, a luxury hotel, four levels of parking, a wedding house, a mosque, imax theatres and an outdoor amphitheatre. The team presented the plans to city and site owner Peruri as part of a developer’s bid competition for the prominent site at Jl. Palatehan 4 Jakarta.
Continued

© Iwan Baan

Zaha Hadid joined Soho China’s Zhang Xin and Pan Shiyi, with 15,000 guests from China and around the world, to celebrate the completion of Galaxy Soho, Beijing.

“Working on Galaxy for Soho China was very exciting. The design responds to the varied contextual relationships and dynamic conditions of Beijing. We have created a variety of public spaces that directly engage with the city; reinterpreting the traditional urban fabric and contemporary living patterns into a seamless urban landscape inspired by nature,” explains Hadid. “The natural rhythms and flows of the city, of the environment and of the people have been integrated within the design to define its formal composition.”
Continued

The project is an examination of the relationship between a pristine rural landscape and the advancing forces of a rapidly growing city. Galaxy Yabao Hi-Tech Enterprises Headquarter Park is close to the central zone of Futian District, Shenzhen China. The Gross site area is about 65 ha; and the GFA is over 1,050,000 sqm, consisting of 18 high-rise towers ranging from 100-300 meters tall, a 5 star hotel, 3 service apartment towers, 3 residential towers, a shopping mall and a 32 ha park.
Continued

© Foster + Partners

Hermitage Plaza will create a new community to the east of La Défense, in Courbevoie, that extends down to the river Seine with cafés, shops and a public plaza at its heart. The project incorporates two 320-metre-high buildings – the tallest mixed-use towers in Western Europe – which will establish a distinctive symbol for this new urban destination on the Paris skyline.

The result of a close collaboration with EPAD, the City of Courbevoie, Atelier de Paysage Urbain and Département de Hauts-de-Seine, the project is intended to inject life into the area east of La Défense by creating a sustainable, high-density community. The two towers accommodate a hotel, spa, panoramic apartments, offices and serviced apartments, as well as shops at the base.
Continued

© Foster + Partners

Jameson House is a new 35-storey mixed-use tower in the heart of Vancouver and includes the first residential development to be completed by the practice in North America – completed at the end of last year, already the building is now almost fully occupied. The project combines the restoration of heritage buildings with new construction: the lower level offices and shops knit with the existing streetscape to reinvigorate the downtown neighbourhood, while the apartments above face dramatic views of the bay and create a new landmark on the skyline.
Continued

The renovation of the down town areas in important big cities is a phenomena that has been giving new life for the inhabitants and visitors, as well as opportunities to architects around the world. Mexico City is no different and for the last 10 years had been working in the rescue of this ancestral and extraordinary area.
Continued

Designed by Sparch, the new Shanghai International Cruise Terminal wins the Best Mixed-use Buildings in the prestigious MIPIM Asia Awards in Hong Kong.

PRESS RELEASE 20 September 2011

SPARCH-DESIGNED SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL CRUISE TERMINAL WINS 2011 MIPIM ASIA AWARDS FOR BEST MIXED-USE BUILDINGS

Even before its completion at the end of the year, the Shanghai International Cruise Terminal mixed-use development has already clinched its first architectural award. The development, designed by international award-winning architects Sparch, won in the Best Mixed-Use Buildings category in the prestigious industry 2011 MIPIM Asia Awards.

This year marks the sixth edition of the awards competition which honours outstanding real estate projects in Asia-Pacific. Winners in the best mixed-use buildings category are selected based on the project concept, originality of architectural design and environment friendliness, among other criteria. The award will be presented to Sparch at the MIPIM Asia’s Gala Dinner on November 16, 2011 at the Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Centre.

Sparch was appointed the master planner of the Cruise Terminal mixed-use development in 2004. Totalling a floor area of more than 260,000 sqm, the development comprises 80 per cent commercial use and 20 per cent public facilities, and entertainment and retail outlets.

The Shanghai International Cruise Terminal offers an eclectic mix of business and entertainment to Shanghai residents and strengthened the city’s status as a key commerce and tourism hub. The highlight of the development is a structure called the ‘Shanghai Chandelier’ – a 40m-high glass-clad portal that overlooks the public park and waterfront where an open space is set aside for residents and tourists to gather for festivals and events. The structure houses several ‘floating’ cafés, restaurants and bars suspended on cables in an extraordinary three-dimensional composition, the first suspended cable construction of its kind in the world.

The project also bears the signature imprint of Sparch in marrying environmental sustainability to creative design. The development utilises the “River Water Cooling Technology”, a first in Shanghai – where water from the Huangpu River is used as a refrigerant to naturally cool the buildings during the hot summer months, and then recycled back to the river.

“The Shanghai International Cruise Terminal is the collaborative result of Sparch and our client’s desire to create a prestigious environment for cruise companies to place Shanghai on their Southeast Asian routes. In addition, the mixed-used development meets the Shanghai Authorities’ call for a new maritime gateway in the heart of the metropolis and establishes dynamic spaces attracting locals and tourists to the Cruise Terminal every day,” said John Curran, Director of Sparch Shanghai.

The maritime development is the largest profit contributor for the developer; its average selling price per sqm rose 73.7 per cent year-on-year in the first half of 2011, with the developer booking revenues of HK$1.73 billion from selling 21,406 sqm at HK$85,000 per sqm.

“We are very honoured that respected industry professionals have chosen Shanghai International Cruise Terminal as a winner in the Best Mixed-Use Buildings category of the prestigious 2011 MIPIM Asia Awards. To stand out from such intense competition and win is a tremendous boost to each and every one of us at Sparch as we strive to create distinctive architecture which balances civic, commercial and environmental aspirations,” said Curran.

Sparch most recently completed the re-design of Starhill Gallery in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Paragon City, the largest shopping mall in Semarang, Indonesia. This comes on the heels of Sparch’s latest win in an international competition – to design a multi-function cultural facility on the banks of the Huangpu River as part of the Xuhui district regeneration of the Shanghai Corniche, China. Dubbed ‘Tool Box’, Sparch’s design incorporates artifacts of the district’s existing industrial heritage. The 8,000 sqm building will house exhibition, performance and convention facilities with construction scheduled to begin in Spring 2012.

Continued

The Sliced Porosity Block—the Raffles City development designed by Steven Holl Architects in Chengdu—celebrates its topping out at 123 meters. Located just south of the intersection of the First Ring Road and Ren Min Nan Road, the 3 million square feet mixed-use complex consists of five towers with offices, apartments, retail, a hotel, cafes, and restaurants.

The project’s sun sliced geometry results from careful study of daylight exposures to the surrounding urban fabric. Porous and inviting from every side, five vertical entrances cut through a layer of micro-urban shopping before leading to the elevated public ‘Three Valley’ plaza. A great urban terrace on the scale of Rockefeller Center, this multi-level plaza in the center of the complex is sculpted by stone steps, ramps, trees, and ponds. Here the public space parallax of overlapping geometries is supercharged by color that glows from the shops positioned underneath the plaza.
Continued