Urban design shopping center<br>Guangzhou / CN
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29. March 2024

Urban design shopping center

Creative mission

  • Creation of a shopping centre with water

Project data

Urban design shopping center
Client City of Guangzhou
Region Asia
Typology Public Spaces / Landscape Planning, Architecture
Art Urban design competition
Planungszeitraum 2017 - 2017
Field size 9,5 ha

The Nansha district of the city of Guangzhou has an important location within the Pearl River Delta. It has been developed as logistic hub with a modern container harbour. The main features of the container harbour such as cubic forms, dynamic and modularity serve as inspiration for the urban design of a shopping centre in Nansha.

The basic concept structure generates a „Shopping harbour“ with two urban waterfronts running along the water canal. A harbour functions as gateway. Therefore, the Shopping harbour will have high-rise building ensembles representing a gate to the world and a gate to the Guangdong province. Along the canal the building forms will be inspired by cranes and containers of a modern harbour area.

The zoning concept of the planning area is based on two complementary principles: Modernism & Tradition. The harbour is an element opening up to the world and thus represents modernism. Nonetheless, every development has its origin in history and traditions. These two aspects influence everybody´s life and form an interesting polarity for the personal development. The different shopping functions are located in correspondence to these complementary principles.

Due to the inspiration in containers, the basic building forms are cubes. The combination of these basic forms generates more complex building ensembles. These ensembles are intermitted by passages and squares, which create open spaces and a high accessibility to every building in the planning area. The urban design avoids big scale shopping malls and fits into the scale of an urban quarter.