Project Overview

Farrells was commissioned to design the Shanghai Shipyard masterplan and architectural design where the construction of the project was recently completed.
The masterplan design vision was to create a lively, vibrant, and iconic destination as an extension and ‘last jigsaw piece’ of Pudong district, complementing the nearby Central Business District of Pudong. The project comprises two grade-A office towers and several high-end retail pavilions which are strategically placed in the wider masterplan context as urban markers that lead people towards the waterfront. The office towers are positioned offset from each other and act as a gateway into the retail extent of LuJiaZui Harbour City with low-level podium and shopping ‘villas’ framing either side of the retail avenue that takes people towards the old factory region to the north. The underground retail areas below ground are also linked throughout the site, enabling for an additional means of all-weather proof segregated vehicular-pedestrian connectivity other than that above ground. A large sunken plaza is interconnected with the underground retail network and also engages as a focal performance or activity space.
The architectural concept is inspired by the shipyard history of Pudong area with the buildings designed to take on characters of the traditional Chinese jewel boxes and tea chests. The waterfront promenade is extended along the central Pudong waterfront and is envisaged to provide a key new public realm celebrating the rich history of the area along with other events and cultural buildings including Kengo Kuma’s Shipyard 1862 Theatre.

Organisation

Farrells

Team

(Key designers)
Stefan Krummeck (Design principal), Peter Barbalov, Benjamin Lau

(HK)
Wendy Wong, Erica Choi, Stephanie Roland, Julia Lou, Jacky Lok, Angeliki Koliomichou, Calvin Chan, Polly Kwai, Connie Wan, Adrian Yau, Marian Coleman, Sonia Chiu, Stephen Young

(Shanghai Team)
Cedric Tang, Judy Wong

Project Brief

The Shanghai Shipyard project is a mixed-use masterplan comprising of grade-A office buildings and high-end retail villas.

The site of the Shanghai Shipyard was once home to the workshops and dry docks of an old shipyard. Today it falls within the Lujiazui Financial District, a modern business centre developed since the 1990s. It is now home to some of the world’s tallest skyscrapers as well as Farrells’ notable Bank of East Asia Financial Centre. The project brief calls for the design of two office towers and retail components sitting in the context of the financial district of Shanghai Pudong area.

Project Innovation/Need

A series of underground linkages and the sunken plazas connect the metro station to the riverfront promenade opening up the underground retail creating a second groundscape of outdoor plazas for cultural events. Enabling easy pedestrian circulation while protecting the vehicular routes above.

One of the key principles for the masterplan is to create multi-layered connectivity from the hinterland to the waterfront. The urban permeability was determined to be crucial for the district, as it was previously ‘cut off’ by a heavy vehicular road. Jimo Road is a significant road redesigned to create a pedestrian friendly link with arts and culture related shopping experiences.

The building façade design compliments and enhances the architectural concept and accentuates the finesse of the building detail. The facade is a combination of varying facade panel widths with partial infills of solid panelling and fins. Variating facade pattern is created and integrated within the structural grid. The façade grid varies between 1500mm, 3000mm or 4500mm spacing and this creates sufficient diversity while still maintaining within an economical limit.

Design Challenge

The project is part of the second phase of the Lujiazui development where phase 1 has several iconic landmark buildings and wide roads would tear the open spaces apart. There is a lack of building height diversity and an absence of smaller grain urban fabric throughout the area making the streetscape experience less inviting and pedestrian friendly.

The design paid great attention to respond and make the retail villas stand out and add to the richness of the existing urban planning. After much research and analysis, we optimized the ratio between building and the width of the road, and that the building retreat of 5 meters is the most suitable for Jimo Road. The process of persuading the planning bureau to change the required retreat from 10 meters to 5 meters was challenging but the outcome was worthwhile as it was a significant enhancement to the retail street. The retail villas took on a diverse array of different façade appearances to further add to the richness of materiality and the small grain size of collective villas also helped to maintain a high level of permeability with the adjacent sites creating a sense of “Urban Living Space” for the Lujiazui riverfront.

Sustainability

In providing an innovative means to deliver both sustainability and cost effectiveness, the key strategy was to come up with a simplistic design and selection of a choice of materials that delivered both qualities at construction stage, long-term operation and maintenance of the building.

The building facade system adopts a modular design and choice of material that can be made to suit the changing variations of the facade to suit the design. It was consciously decided that the facade design should not be completely glazed and that it should be a combination of solid panels of nearly 40:60 solid to glazing ratio to assist in improving the shading properties and solar heat gain. The addition of deep architectural vertical fins further contributed in making the building achieve greater energy efficiency and reduce energy costs in the long run; reduce heat absorption in the summer and retain heat in the winter.