Telephone +61 7 3844 1362
studio@shanethompson.com.au
47 Wahcumba St, Dutton Park
PO Box 1170 Fortitude Valley
Queensland 4006 Australia
Shenzhen, China
Our submission for the Shenzhen Super City International Design Competition was undertaken with Mode Design, Williamson Architects and Purple Cow Architectural Imagery. STA led the design team for the development of an ambitious integrated urban development of 3 super high rise commercial office towers over 4 central city blocks on the Shenzhen waterfront. At 125, 140 and 165 storeys the total development was intended to become a new international landmark for Shenzhen, on mainland China west of Hong Kong.
The number of towers at such heights is an unprecedented scale and the opportunity to be explored was to integrate such large buildings, not only into the urban fabric of the emerging contemporary city, but also beyond that into the skyline of Shenzhen, in a manner which was particular to Shenzhen and China. The development also includes major new visual and performing arts centres, a public park and associated green spaces, with a connected retail precinct giving access to the existing metro system. Working with the world renown Arup group as engineers, our proposal was for an integrated landscape, architecture and engineering proposal of the highest sustainability. The tower forms eschewed conventional approaches for a highly efficient structure and integrated services approach, maximising off site fabrication and underpinned by a very elemental formal concept derived from the very fundamental and traditional Chinese harvested rice stack. An essentially and deceptively simple organic structure but using the natural dynamic forces of bunched straws or sticks. These “leaning straw forms” ensure a highly efficient structure and iconic form rooted in centuries of Chinese culture.
Repetitive 2 storey high structural glazing and bio dynamic elements are stacked to form the hourglass shaped towers, with the façade supporting lichen which clean the buildings waste water for reuse. The different colours of the towers, gold, jade and coral reflect a Chinese hierarchy of values and assist to distinguish the towers both locally and internationally. Generous multi storey sky gardens, obliquely referencing the lush mountain scape of Shenzhen, offer visual and physical access to greenery and fresh air at all levels of the towers. The ground plane, whilst focussed on providing ease of access for the large communities occupying the towers, also have a variety of garden spaces connected across the sites for relaxation and retreat, which includes ornamental rice paddies, as traditionally occupied this area, and spacious timber framed glass houses as thresholds to the underground retail and metro precinct.