MIXED-USE IN SHANGHAI BY FOSTER + PARTNERS AND HEATHERWICK STUDIO

Bund Finance Centre (BFC) is a prominent new mixed-use destination in Shanghaidesigned jointly by Foster + Partners and Heatherwick Studio.

The 420,000-square-metre development of eight buildings includes two 180-metre landmark towers, and combines premium ‘grade A’ offices with a boutique hotel, an arts and cultural centre and a wide variety of luxury retail spaces, all arranged around a generous landscaped public plaza.

The scheme brings together premium office space for international headquarters and a unique ‘corporate mansion’ – an elite networking platform for business partners and VIPs. A boutique luxury hotel provides a glamorous new destination on the Bund. The retail spaces are vertically layered with boutiques, concept stores for international brands, a luxury shopping mall and Michelin-starred restaurants.

A palette of crafted stone and bronze details gives the buildings a jewel-like quality. The edges of each volume are made of richly textured, hand-crafted granite and become slimmer as they rise, giving the impression of solidity at the base and transparency at the top. At the heart of the scheme is a flexible arts and cultural centre, which combines exhibition and events halls with a performance venue, inspired by the open stages of traditional Chinese theatres.

‘GARDEN BRIDGE’ FOR LONDON BY THOMAS HEATHERWICK

Olympic Cauldron-designer Thomas Heatherwick has unveiled concept plans for a green bridge crossing the River Thames in London. The project is backed by London mayor Boris Johnson who wants to build new green infrastructure in the capital similar to New York’s High Line elevated park.

The vision for the link between the Victoria Embankment, near Temple and the South Bank comes after Heatherwick Studio – working with Arup – won a Transport for London tender to improve pedestrian access across the river. Heatherwick said: ‘With its rich heritage of allotments, gardens, heathland, parks and squares, London is one of the greenest cities in the world.

‘In this context we are excited to have been selected by TFL to explore the opportunity of a pedestrian river crossing. The idea is simple; to connect north and south London with a garden. We have been working with actor and campaigner Joanna Lumley, who has been a proponent of such an idea for several years.”

A spokesperson for the mayor told sister title New Civil Engineer: ‘The mayor has a long-standing commitment to increasing river crossings across the Thames. ‘He is also keen to help progress in London an iconic scheme similar to the New York High Line. He has instructed TfL to examine ways to do this. ‘A proposal is currently being progressed following a competitive tender process. The construction of the structure is entirely dependent on third party funding.’

ZEITZ MOCAA BY HEATHERWICK STUDIO

Built in 1921 the Grain Silo building remains an icon of the Cape Town skyline, in South Africa. It will become a platform for artists across Africa and house the largest collection of African contemporary art across 9,500 sqm of space. Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) is set to welcome its first visitors at the end of 2016.

“How do you turn forty-two vertical concrete tubes into a place to experience contemporary culture? The brief was to reinvent the historic Grain Silo at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, as a not-for-profit cultural institution housing the most significant collection of contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora. Our first thoughts wrestled with the extraordinary physical facts of the building.

There is no large open space within the densely packed tubes and it is not possible to experience these volumes from inside. Rather than strip out the evidence of the building’s industrial heritage, we wanted to find a way to celebrate it. We could either fight a building made of concrete tubes or enjoy its tube-iness. Unlike many conversions of historic buildings which have grand spaces ready to be repurposed, this building has none. 

The project became about imagining an interior carved from within an infrastructural object. The solution we developed was to carve galleries and a central circulation space from the silos’ cellular concrete structure, creating a cathedral-like central atrium filled with light from a glass roof. The other silo bins will be carved away above ground level to create gallery spaces for the Zeitz MOCAA permanent collection and international travelling exhibitions. 

From the outside, the greatest visible change to the Silo’s monumental structure will be the addition of pillowed glazing panels, inserted into the existing geometry of the upper floors, which will bulge outward as if gently inflated. By night, this will transform the building into a glowing lantern or beacon in the harbour”. Heatherwick Studio