Vertical city – mixing uses in one building

Expander Tower Study

Location: Shenzhen, China
Client: Expander – Shenzhen Construction Co.,Ltd.

Programme: 150.000m² mixed use tower, 70.000m² office, 25.000m² luxury apartments, 50.000m² serviced apartments, 5000m² supporting uses

Located in a central location of Shenzhen’s Luohu District and earmarked for  urban regeneration, the area around the Grand Theatre – one of Shenzhen’s cultural landmark buildings – will see tremendous change in the years to come. The site owned by our client will be affected by this change. This offers the opportunity to redevelop the site and replace a dated six storey office building with a new building reflecting the increased scale and centrality both of the area and Shenzhen as a whole.

The design study explores three basic options to create a ‘special’ tower – unusual spaces within the building, an orchestrated ensemble of several towers and a memorable shape. Reaching a maximum height of 300 m the three designs visualize potential outcome for each of the three approaches.

The jury praised all the designs, voicing a preference for a singular tower with setbacks since this achieves a high degree of recognisability with a good economic performance and the possibility to create special spaces for public uses above ground. The design will be further developed in the months to come, including the direct link to a new metro station and retail and conference facilities as well as parking in the ground floor zones.

Stages:
2013 Concept
2014 Concept refinement

Team:
MLA+: Markus Appenzeller, Reza Al-Kaabi, Roland Winkler, Milena Zaklanovic