Xiqing New CBD

Starting from a design philosophy called ‘tension of opponent actors’, an antagonistic composition of interacting clear geometric forms has been formed – with the aim of creating a diversified spatial cityscape.
One part of the antagonistic composition creates rectangular clusters around a central park as core of the arrangement.
Due to their modular structure, those clusters will offer a wide parameter of usage, flexible and variable to react to modified requirements on the time table of development. Moreover, in a smaller scale, each modular element is able to adapt to new developments.
Mixed used functions that make cities highly attractive in their day and night rhythm will be located in those modular organized systems.
The linear arrangement of building blocks offers a spatial partition of ‘inside and outside’. It defines public and private space in an unmistakable manner and provides landscaped areas for the nearby buildings.

The central park serves as recreation zone for the building clusters and as environmental valuated element for improving the micro-climate.
Around the central park the modular elements are arranged in rings: the inner ring accommodates residential functions with direct relationship to the park, the outer rings are reserved for office and commercial use.

The ellipsoid ‘islands of use’ are related to each other and to the rectangular clusters and aim to complete the frame and picture of composition. Each ‘island of use’ has a different balance point and architectural language.
Each single urban element and cluster of the overall composition has its own distinctive character and plays its part within the harmony of the ensemble.

Jinnan Eco-Estate

This aim is realized by the combined means of urban planning, landscaping, and architecture and by developing a consistent branding strategy providing identity to the development as a whole and serving as core marketing concept for the residential development.

An existing commercial area is centered on outdoor activities such as horseback riding, a green-house tropical garden, harvesting your own food, as well as an event space. RhineScheme proposes to combine these and add other activities around the theme of “Living healthy in harmony with nature”.
This gives a branding direction to the commercial centre. It also provides the residential areas with an identity and theme to which buildings and landscaping are to be designed. This has been done by careful selection of façade materials and garden design, but also on a technological/ecological level.

The commercial centre will attract visitors from all over Tianjin, but is still functioning as the local heart of the development. Residents will benefit from the facilities and are attracted to the underlying ecological idea.
These considerations are also reflected in the design. Rather than designing each plot as a separate island, the aim has been to tie all together with two parkland axes, which function as the internal pedestrian routes.
Their crossing point is the middle of the commercial centre and by that is leading all visitors there.

Neighbourhoods spring off the axes like leaves on a branch, each with their own identity but all part of the same family. Each plot can be accessed from the axes, whether it is a residential neighbourhood, the school or the commercial heart.
The neighbourhoods are connected to the axes through a communal garden or ‘green heart’. The east-west running axis has the character of an ‘urban’ axis. Soft landscape is combined with hard quays and steps leading to the water depending on the functions on either side.
The north-south axis forms a wetland park. It is wide and works as storm water storage and high quality outdoor space. This axis can also be described as the ‘event axis’, with activities such as Wetland Exhibition, Water Experience Park, Wedding Square, fishing pond and event space all aligned.
Both axes and all green hearts are themed around water.
Water improves the living quality of the surroundings and provides a dynamic landscape experience in times of higher and lower water levels. In time of flooding an overflow area is provided which keeps the low levels safe.

The architecture is modern but unobtrusive. Materials with texture and natural colours close to nature have been selected: natural stone and brick in earthy colour tones. Each neighbourhood is recognizable through its distinct colour scheme. The commercial area, although compiled of different plots, uses the same style and colours in order to give coherence.
It is part of the overall design concept to implement the theme “Living healthy in harmony with nature” on all levels: From the organic food sold at the farmers market to the building materials and technologies used. Proposals include constructing low-energy residential buildings, installing water-saving and energy-saving appliances, and implementing storm water storage and water run-off filtering in the landscape.

Qingdao Shipping Campus

The university’s Main Building, as heart and centre of the campus, is where both axes meet each other: the main green axis as pedestrian artery leading directly to the sea with Water Park and training harbour, and the future development axis along the sea focusing towards the north.

The Main Building housing administrative functions and public ones like library and café/tea house is forming a landmark during day and night, both by its height and by its nocturnal function as lighthouse visible from far away.
Along the south side of the campus area, teaching and training functions are lined up, clearly separated and at the same time interconnected with other functions by the central east-west axis.

The students’ dormitories in the north-west are arranged around green plazas with sports facilities in a macro-scale, and around courtyards as more intimate living spaces in a micro-scale.
The arrangement of building groups can be found as principle all over the campus area: Deliberately the master plan creates a vivid variety of squares, plazas, courtyards and gardens – different in scale, grade of openness, surface materials and functions, thus forming a whole and unique world.

The prominent, big-scale sports facilities including a large assembly hall are located in an open area close to the sea and the neighbouring public park. The future seamen have to be trained; thus sport is a crucial function of this university. In that sense the necessary sports facilities are upgraded by combining them with recreational uses. The Sports Park serves for events and leisure activities as well.

The Sports Park forms the central idea of the college and is hence placed in the pivotal point of the overall design, when in the future the campus will be extended northerly along the sea.
Students can use the area to do sports, but they can also just – or primarily – use it as a landscape park, to learn, to relax, to meet and play, or to chill out.

Xingang Shipyard Cultural & Entertainment District

The site holds a number of historical relics to be integrated into the urban planning. The whole plot is intended to become a vibrant mixed-use city district with emphasis on culture and entertainment.
The overall design provides around 550,000m² of commercial areas, 620,000m² cultural uses, 300,000m² offices and 270,000m² residences, as well as some 70,000m² areas for creative industries and research.

A logical grid shaping infrastructure and traffic forms the backbone of the urban concept, combining subway lines, regional and local car traffic, and generous pedestrian boulevards through the district and along the waterside. Architecture is giving a third dimension to the infrastructure by forming adequate and memorable urban spaces along the arteries of development.
An integrated city district with mixed functions will live day and night – 24 hours, 7 days per week. To this intent, residential communities have been carefully integrated into the urban pattern: One provides apartments along a newly created canal, with courtyards opening up towards the water; the second provides high-end living facing the planned seaside park.

Successful urban planning creates images that remind of other cities: The Promenade along the harbour reminds of the Promenade des Anglais’ in Nice with its glamorous hotels. The Wharf Park in the former dockyards reminds of the ‚Upper East Side Park’ in New York. The Ocean Plaza, a traffic square almost in the centre of the development, reminds of ‚Potsdam Square’ in Berlin. The shopping street with its natural stone buildings is like Berlin’s splendid ‚French Street’. The Grand Gallery reminds of the passages of Milan, creating a shopping universe with courtyards and lanes. Finally, the water course which brings the sea deeper into the city is evoking images of Amsterdam or Copenhagen.

But on top of that, this urban quarter will be a unique creation with its own personality and charisma, shimmering between old and new. Existing factory buildings are kept as eye-catchers in the focus of important visual axes, mainly accommodating cultural uses. These buildings, as landmarks and symbols for the urban transformation, are giving a distinct identity to the place.

Last not least, the most expensive construction site along the water is given as a public park to the citizens: a green shoreline in the midst of the old dockyards. The Wharf Park – as trademark of a livable city – will be the magnet for visitors searching for recreation. By a water front boulevard, it is connected with the adjacent city areas and will attract and lead many people along the water’s edge.
Closely connected to the park, but dedicated to festivities and open air events, the Central Plaza is formed by historical heritage found in situ: A gantry crane and a former factory hall, both interlocked by a timber platform, are forming an open space that conveys the charisma of the historical use. This big square is linking park and boulevard by a continuous green roof.
The new mixed-use harbour quarter has best potential to become a successful development within the metropolis of Tianjin. A unique network – formed by on-site facts and findings, by infrastructure, urban spaces and mixed functions – will eventually create a recognizable and memorable place.

Shenxi New Town Centre

The growth of herbs in the nearby Changbai Mountain range has always played an important role in the wider Benxi region’s history. Provided that Shenxi New Town will become a dense business and administrative centre, the urban design approach has been guided by the development of natural features that already exist on the site. Keeping the environment balanced and sound is a key strategy, since it is nature – home to herbal plants – that provides the reason for implementing the urban design.

Especially the water courses flowing down from the surrounding mountains can enhance a strong connection between cityscape and landscape. Green corridors accompany the rivers and – as they come closer to the new town center – transform into landscape parks on both sides of the rivers.
These parks help keeping the urban fabric on a distance. Set back from the river bed, they give space for relaxation, recreation, but also to environmentally friendly pedestrian and bicycle use.
In the landscape concept, the Northern Riverbank assumes characteristics of an urban waterfront. It is marked by a pedestrian path made of colourful tiles which provide a pleasant spot throughout the year, where in Shenxis’ harsh winters flowers wouldn’t have ease to grow. Sharp edges and a range of features for pedestrians – platforms, pathways, ramps and stairs – put it in contrast to the Southern Riverbank Park, which is kept more naturally.

The urban fabric approaches the riverside parks in layers of different functions. Moving northwards, the layers increase in density. The 1st layer combines cultural and entertainment functions. Cultural buildings are aligned like pearls on a string, giving identity to thematic squares in their front: Museum of History, Technique & Science, Planning & Art Gallery, Library and Theatre/CPPCC Building (for political and for theatre & music performances) mark the principal cultural institutions within the New Town. These 4 cultural buildings merge into a belt of entertainment and shopping facilities, spots of health and wellbeing, restaurants and cafés.

The 1st layer lives from detached buildings granting a close connection between built and non-built environment.
The 2nd layer is composed of U-shaped mixed-use buildings opening up to the parks and a following row of courtyard buildings with a pedestrian zone in-between.
The following 3rd layer of high-rises is hosting representative offices; the urban structure culminates in a Business Square surrounded by four particularly shaped office towers.
The gradual increase of building heights towards north guarantees that most of the buildings benefit from a good sunlight exposure and from either their visual or physical connection to the green.
The 4th and last layer accommodates a mixed use of offices, service apartments and commercial & education facilities. This layer decreases in density and height and shall connect the urban fabric with its hinterland. It provides more differentiated open spaces of smaller scale.

At Theatre Square, the east-west running axis intersects with the north-south axis, which starts at Business Square in the north and ends in the round-shaped Governmental Plaza in the south.
The Governmental & Administration Complex occupies the most privileged location: on an exposed piece of land at the confluence of two rivers. It is embedded in a green surrounding which integrates it into an overlaying park, but also isolates the cluster from the rest of the town. A number of buildings are unified under a circular-shaped roof which makes the complex dominate rather by shape than by height. While the municipal functions are spread over a series of buildings, the governmental administration is located in a landmark tower at the edge of the circular shape. The buildings embrace a plaza for celebrations which gets access from north through a gate and opens towards the park in the south.

Zhangjiawo New Town

The compact core area of the town and planned city centre caters to trade and service sectors and is located in a south-eastern direction. It will be connected with the cultural centre of the town by a pedestrian passage running above street level.
The first residential developments have already been built.
The central area combines a traffic hub with HSR, bus, subway (planned MTR line no.3) and tram stations as main booster of the development with shopping malls, cultural areas, mixed use and living areas, as well as diverse service areas.

A ring-shaped green belt with watercourse defines the borders of the core area – similar to the demolished city walls around a medieval European town – and at the same time creates the necessary distance between town centre and surrounding express ways.