A little over four years ago, we were asked to design a large multi-use project (H-MAX) in ShoaXing, China, the home of some of the nation’s most famous poets. ShaoXing is also the birthplace of Zhou Enlai, Premier of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to 1976, who met with U.S. President Richard Nixon during his 1972 visit to China and helped to improve US-Sino relations.
The 1.5 million-square-foot H-MAX encompasses a variety of uses, including hotels, theaters, restaurants, teahouses, retail, housing, and even a luxury car showroom. Its sheer size and strategic urban location offered us an opportunity to work as architect / urban designer. In collaboration with the client (Jindi Development) and the Mayor’s planning department, we were able to tweak the original master plan for the southwest corner of this ancient city. We thus created new public spaces within a new network of streets and pedestrian walkways, which integrated existing avenues and streets into the whole plan. We also proposed embellishments to the avenue that runs along our master-plan site and the Qiantang River estuary.
Working in China presents incredible opportunities, but they do require designers to operate differently than in their homeland. We were allowed to take our plan only through the Design Development phase, at which point the project was turned over to a Local Design Institute (LDI), which completed the construction drawings and took over the construction administration. (This process is a bit like raising a child until age 10 and then turning over the child-rearing responsibility to a boarding school.)
In any case, we were excited to get these videos of the project under construction. They show one of the new semi-circular shaped public plazas and the hotel that overlooks it. Much effort went into developing interesting building sections that could animate the public spaces. Terraces, balconies and bridges also enrich these spaces in lively, dynamic ways.
We look forward to sharing more images with you as the project evolves.
This H-MAX would not have been possible without the partnership of Jue Zhan of the Green Design Union, Prof. Weijun Zhou of Zhejiang University, and Haradasan, the landscape architect.
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