Tianjin Eco-Town Exhibition Hall

‘The house of the future’ will be a building for exhibitions and events embedded into a park landscape. ‘The house of the future’ creates its own sculptural identity in prominent gateway position and generates orientation and identification, energy and innovation.

Architectural Design Concept

On the main side of the ‘The house of the future’ public spaces are defined by simple volumes, intersecting with each other. Folding the building up to create urban high points makes ‘The house of the future’ a striking appearance.

In order to better integrate into the ecological atmosphere of the park, the exhibition hall building is composed of small volumes. Therefore, the volume is split into two parts: the exhibition hall and the forum center, each with its own architectural language.

A large semi-open facade to the lakeside offers spectacular views into the park and brings the intended future-spaces into close contact with the present green-scape.

The foyers on the ground floor connect all of the essential routes and functions of the building. They act as meeting points and space for communication. This is where visitors can find all the important services, such as the coatroom, restrooms and central information.

The ground floor event spaces of the exhibition hall can be configured into spaces of various sizes, with mobile walls and intelligent building services. Daylight and a barrier-free design all together create a suitable surrounding for the dialog on the future world in ‘The house of the future’.

Between Forum and Exhibition Hall, meeting rooms serve as a mutual building extension.

Sustainable Responses 

 ‘The house of the future’ was conceived as a low-energy building, designed to respond to extensive sustainable concepts. Land saving design reduces the pressure for rainwater discharge into municipal sewage systems; remaining rain water from the building is processed through rain gardens into the green space. Water management systems inside the building will reuse and save water resources.

Building envelopes adopt protective structures and thermal insulations, doors and windows adopt exterior shading. Automatic temperature-controlled exhaust shutters aim to guide natural fresh air, and reduce the use of air conditioning systems.

The lighting system adopts intelligent energy-saving control measures, while the illumination is based exclusively on low power LED technology. The system will be supplied by using photovoltaic panels with an estimated total installed capacity of about 85.000 KWh max.

Shanghai Baosteel Pioneer Park

The ‘Wusongkou Venture Park’ of the Baosteel Group is the largest industrial complex in Shanghai. Since its beginnings, the manufacturer has grown at an amazing pace and continuity, and now after 30 years of pure iron and steel industry, Baosteel Group is leading the pioneering regeneration of the old factory area in the Baoshan Wusong district.

The start-up area has been divided into three key nodes along the main city artery, TongJi Road.The new development, ‘Wusongkou Pioneer Park’, will play an important and demonstrative role in major innovative industries such as science & technology, cultural and creative industry, modern services with new materials, smart manufacturing, 3D printing and energy and environmental protection. To enhance the comprehensive urban quality, it will offer large spaces for start-up businesses, workshops, educational programs and social activities as well as leisure and shopping possibilities.

Node 1, the ‘Art creative cultural area’, is located at the northern edge of the industrial transformation site and its interface with the city outskirts. This site will become an indispensable link between the center and the periphery, not only because of its location, but for the historical meaning and value for Baosteel Group Corporation and Shanghai. It was here, in 1978, where the first pile of the iron and steel factory was driven into the earth.

Considering the historical value and the charm of the first factory building, the architectural proposal preserves the precious buildings and elements and merges them with new innovative materials and functions.

The functions of this plot are focused on cultural and high-standard creative developments. Office towers with commercial podiums rise along TongJi road to serve the whole neighborhood and act as a noise barrier between the elevated highway and the low-rise cultural heart of the node. The center of the plot then becomes a cultural hub, with a steel museum, library, entertainment hall, workshop ateliers and co-working spaces for creative minds. The scenery towards the west river bank is an open plaza with cafes and restaurants for relaxation and leisure.

To emphasize not only the urban but historical and cultural importance of this node, the project proposes a super high-rise as a symbol of the growth and sustainability of the Baosteel Group Corporation. The super high-rise offers space for high level commercial functions, finance, offices and a 5 star hotel. A restaurant/lounge-bar with a 360 degree view over the area is planned to serve at the 71st floor.

Node 2, the ‘Casting urban life area’ is located at the intersection of TongJi Road in the east and Shuichan Road, in the north. This node is divided in two, the east part and the west part.

The plot in the east is next to the subway and bus station, which makes this area very active and a perfect spot for the new growth of high and middle-rise office and Soho towers, with commercial podiums for shopping, entertainment and dining as well as kindergarten, children’s playground, language school and dance school to serve the residents.

The west part has another scale, more quiet, with charming existing buildings and an amazing outdoor scenery, which gives the node the character of a small hidden place that perfectly suits for an escape from the urban hustle to enjoy diverse cultural exhibitions and small restaurants and café & bars.

Node 3, the ‘Technical creative office area’, is located at the south edge of the Wusongkou Pioneer Park, which contains the old steel pipe factory, and has a closer connection with the surrounding districts, such as large residential and commercial areas. As the southernmost point of the Park, it is the south gate to the area and is welcoming the visitor with a solid and elegant representative image.

The existing layout of the factory buildings spreads out perpendicular to the avenue and lets them align to each other closely with a strong character. Based on the linear array footprint of the existing buildings, the new volumes develop upward, and become an image of stacked steel plates with an east west orientation. The skin of the new architecture is covered with corten steel and square windows with convex-concave shading elements, to emphasize the industrial character.

Changchun ‘Longxiang Plaza’

Adjacent to the two arterial roads, the project enjoys outstanding connectivity. The Beihu Wetland Park on the west side of the site is of great appeal… The design makes full use of the landscape resources so that the planned new buildings can all have access to the beautiful scenery. In the future, diverse commercial formats (leisure, commercial, hotels, apartments, offices, etc.) will attract a large number of business people. The dynamic and vigorous architectural style also offers a striking and attractive urban scene.

The overall project is designed to be low in the south and high in the north, in order to respect the central location of the existing Jixing Building and to ensure best views of all buildings along Beihu Park.
The plan outlines a city skyline that is gradually rising from south to north. The high-rise buildings in the plot are surrounded by water bays of Beihu Park from the south to the north, forming a high point on the northernmost super-tall buildings as an important landmark of the city. The high-rise buildings will serve as offices in the future, and they all can enjoy splendid views of Beihu Park.

The southernmost plot among the three – on the west side of Beiyuanda Street – has been positioned as the Center of Science and Technology. The southeast side of the plot is for multi-storey buildings, whose volume and scale are relatively small, while the layout is flexible to serve as individualized exhibition space. At the same time, the design avoids blocking the view of Jixing Building.
Several tall buildings are arranged on the west side (along the lake), as SOHO office space. Multi-storey buildings will be designed with a rooftop garden to create pleasant views. The central plot (north side of Jixing Building) is planned to be ‘Longxiang (Phase I) Lifestyle Plaza’ including a five-star international hotel. 3 or 4 storey buildings will form commercial space so as to meet the needs of the High-tech Zone. The hotel will have guest rooms on higher floors facing the lake, so that every room offers optimal views.
The plot on the north side is planned to host ‘Longxiang (Phase II) Future Plaza’, a ‘Water World’ complex, a quasi-5-star business hotel, serviced apartments and super high-rise office buildings (220 meters).
The plot on the east side of Beiyuanda Street is planned as Financial Centre, which echoes the planned buildings on the west side.
The underground (garage) of the four plots will be connected.

Proposal 1 uses natural arc elements in the design of the entire project to create a stable and smooth overall image.
Proposal 2 highlights the volume of buildings and vibrancy of space accentuating the beauty of geometric elements and making the building full of tension and vitality. The façade design adopts a diversified approach with futuristic art, emphasizing new technologies and catering to people’s aspiration for innovation and exploration.

Commercial Plaza of the 21st Century

Instead a Wow-effect is needed. Shopping in the traditional way will not work any longer if consumers degenerate to weak-willed puppets of online trade.
Shopping 21 needs to integrate a “holospace”, which itself integrates virtual reality with all its fascinating new experiences and combine it with the persistent need for places of conventional entertainment and traditional forms of encounter.
This “holospace” is the agora of the computer age, a volume and innovative “machine” that creates and combines all forms of positive experiences.
Creating such spaces – vivid and attracting, amazing, surprising, emotionalizing, illusionist, captivating, intriguing, and seductive – will decide about the success or failure of the commercial plazas of the future.

In RhineScheme’s concept, the “holistic box” is the exlibris of the project, giving visitors the chance to recreate the space and transform themselves. It is: virtual, experimental, imaginative, hallucinating.
A moving walkway links people to the ultimate entertainment experience.
Around a floating box an ascending ramp rises, leading the visitors through the commercial space and letting them slowly get immersed by the multi-faceted atmosphere.
The external descending ramp offers a vast choice of sceneries, environments and entertainment.

Under the box and in a central core the main plaza is located where all sorts of activities converge and interact.
The surface surrounding the spiral is more than just an envelope. It contains several activities such as movie screens, projections, climbing & rappel, and it encloses the big three- dimensional outdoor/indoor volume. This “metamorphic skin” brings all the elements together and is a key design element from inside and outside.

Fuyang Ying River East

The business area includes an iconic super high-rise building with a height of 180 meters as well as low-rise commercial streets for continental European style shopping.
The relationship between Anhui Province and the German State of Lower Saxony are a foundation for tourism and for the transfer of technology and tradition in beer brewing and other related businesses. German-style Biergartens are placed along the river bank providing an authentic atmosphere of German leisure culture.

The location of the plot offers splendid views towards the river delta and the city centre directly behind. In order to take advantage of the views and the location along the river, revitalizing the waterfront and creating reasonably sized commercial facilities is decisive for the success of the project. Three main design principles have been traced:
Maximized view connections, attractive work spaces & leisure activities, and a public Waterfront Promenade.

A continuous circuit linking the main commercial areas at strategic points supports the development to become a vivid, active area with diverse functions.
Located straight in the axis of the delta, the office and hotel towers rotate their direction, thus emphasizing the views towards the delta. The towers are designed to create a choreographic three-dimensional silhouette along the river. At the same time they are facing the green island towards the south, providing visual connections and welcoming the traffic crossing the bridge.
Creating a commercial podium at several levels is a strategy to expand the views to the delta. Directing the commercial area towards the centre and entering from the main access points, leads people in and contains the flow inside. It helps creating an important core for business and commerce.

The residential area comprises high-end apartments with best views towards the Ying River and the city center beyond. The residential buildings have two orientations to optimize both the views towards the river and the sun exposure. Different angles between the buildings avoid blocking the views.

Qinhuangdao HSR Station district

By adding contemporary and green architecture and by inventing and developing a convenient infrastructure for vehicles and pedestrians to cross from one side of the station to the other without interference.
The urban expansion around the station will be seen as proof of a tolerant, modern and smart city, adding both mature and charming features to the city image.

RhineScheme’s task was to design the non-residential areas only.
The northern intervention site occupies a total area of 9.3 ha; the smaller south site has 3.4 ha.
The functions inside the southern area interact as a small town, with a five star hotel, office towers and commercial street, where people have a pleasant stay, workplaces and shopping facilities directly connected to the HSR train station. The uses are organized around a series of interconnected plazas forming a semi-circle with focus on the train station.

The northern areas welcome the passengers with a pair of super high-rise towers, both 205 meters tall. These twin towers create an iconic landmark in the new city skyline.
The further north is marked by mainly residential areas, where low-rise commercial streets along the Central Avenue and the avenue surrounding the train station offer convenient shopping and leisure facilities.

The Cloud Yizhuang

To make it more attractive for potential buyers, this high-rise building should integrate service facilities that other developments in the vicinity do not or cannot offer, furthermore have a strong and unique, icon-like image easy to remember by name and by its shape.
These requirements and goals find an answer in an innovative building concept: The Cloud.

A building which creates at the same time individuality and community feeling by its arena-like interior that provides a positive, optimistic working atmosphere and that integrates attractive services in its podium and on its accessible and passable roofscape.
Compared with any kind of typical office tower, this building offers excellent possibilities of self-projection.
Compared with neighbouring business parks, the Cloud creates a dense business atmosphere, and by fostering communication and exchange it provides the basis for creativity. It is the best expression of commitment to employees and city development.

But not only the envelope is innovative; it is the spatial concept as a whole: Every office is like an individual townhouse – surrounding a central atrium, with individual access from different galleries. The program provides a great flexibility of spaces which can rapidly and efficiently adapt to changes.
The cloud concept is innovative, creative, communicative, open-minded, future-oriented, self-confident and sustainable in itself.

Changchun 1948

Seeing the industrial heritage of the past as a chance to form attractive, creative, innovative spaces, is still not much developed in China. Singular and successful attempts in the biggest cities, Shanghai and Beijing, are exceptions. In Changchun, RhineScheme made a variety of proposals in the form of feasibility studies and business/usage concepts of how to keep and integrate a suitable amount of the old factory halls and revive them with new functions.

Some of the iconic factory buildings as well as typical, unique, sometimes peculiar industrial relics of the past have been seamlessly integrated. A number of fascinating artefacts found in situ have been transformed into artistic sculptures. In the same way landscape elements – mainly the immense rows of big trees having grown on the plot for over 60 years – could be preserved and become part of the new ‘commercial landscape’. Even if a complete conservation of the old building structures was not always possible, brick materials have been re-used extensively in facades and pavements, and great efforts have been made in reshaping buildings that resemble the local findings.

This exceptional commercial area is tailored to local culture and conditions and also to Changchun’s specific urban planning history with Russian influence.
The project is an outstanding case study and one of the early examples in China transforming an abandoned industrial site into a successful mixed-use area. Especially in the evening and night hours ‘Changchun 1948’ unfolds a special charm and magic atmosphere.

Quelle Complex Nuremberg

The “Quelle mail-order machine” with its approximately 250,000 m² usable area is probably the most consistent realization of a perfected logistic concept. To this day, the building impresses with monumentality and lightness.
After the insolvency of Quelle Group in 2009, 82 years after its founding, all conveyor systems were dismantled; the former function is barely visible in the building today.

In 2015, the hammer of the auctioneer fell in the foreclosure sale of the Quelle Shipping Center at 16.8 million Euros for the Portuguese real estate developer Sonae Sierra, who would like to rebuild the area.
RhineScheme’s German partner practice ksg, who developed a usage concept for the Quelle building, is also involved in the further planning. The future complex is intended to offer a mix of shopping, commercial, sports and community facilities.

Taiyuan South Station | Front Buildings

Foremost aim of this architectural and landscape proposal has been to create an architectural landmark that solves all functional aspects and serves the citizens, strong enough to be an adequate counterpart to the monstrous station building.

A whole string of hybrid buildings is lined up in front of the station, offering a very urban mix of uses and a (semi-)public interior atmosphere along a sequence of functions. Pedestrians can walk through the cluster and pass by shopping-malls and retailers, restaurants, cafés and tea houses, service and cultural facilities, exhibition and show rooms, hotel lobbies and such of business apartments and offices. A system of pedestrian paths is crossing and interconnecting the buildings and the main plaza, making it a permeable connection from the city to the station, equipped with open green spaces for the public and for the users of the buildings.
The overall idea is to form a ‘window to the city’, by the buildings’ architectural shape, by their function and in their façade design. A building volume forming the elements ‘frame and window’ is floating above a two-storey podium with a variety of uses for the public. The ‘windows’ – more or less transparent – will enhance the visibility and interaction between plaza activities and interior universe of each building. Moreover, these ‘windows’ can be used as multimedia screens serving for information, entertainment, and public events. They will indicate significant locations for public urban activities and welcome guests and visitors.

The railway station itself is focus and starting point of future development, with its plazas facing the south-western and north-eastern urban areas as linkage and connection. Both plazas serve as entrance to the city and functional hub for several traffic systems, but with different characters.
The squares will be vitalized by an attractive use of the encompassing buildings, and by their sophisticated landscape. Around the (Western) Main Square a sequence of smaller plazas and landscape features will be implemented to interact with various traffic elements, like subway access, bus terminal, taxi stand, car parking, ‘kiss & ride’, etc. The entity of squares is serving as forum and platform for numerous urban functions and activities, emphasizing the stay qualities along with the function as traffic hub.
The linear structures of the plazas are anchoring the Railway Station as their central element. A water axis is the connecting element between the two plazas. As ‘slow lane’ with rather calm character it is contrasting the ‘fast lane’ for traffic affairs. Tree groves serve as spatial structure and frame setting to create proportionate and human-scale spaces. Finally, a sequence of green spots and pocket parks are implemented as rest areas during the day, supported by an adequate lighting concept at night.