Shenzhen Bay Mega-city

Location: Shenzhen, China

Client: Shenzhen Center for Design

Date: 2014 Competition

Total Area: 35,2ha

Budget: Undisclosed

The proposal is made to be applied to the whole of Shenzhen Bay area. A consistent application to a large area of urban development will obtain the biggest benefits from the project, making a whole sector of the city more integrated and interconnect. The increased productivity of this urban prototype will be soon evident. By making the high-density city more integrated, Shenzhen Bay Mega-city will be able to perform better as an urban structure than other district of comparable importance.

The agglomeration of the different buildings into a single continuum, will guarantee the possibility for virtually any program of any scale to locate into the plan. The hybrid composition of the program will also produce a 24h operation cycle, which will optimize the use of the building stock. Both energy-wise and use-wise, the complex will be operating as a multi-functional urban area.

The final form of the city will not be predetermined by the plan (the enclosed images are just one of the possible scenarios) but by the cumulative effect of market forces, regulatory frameworks, immigration policies etc… intersecting with climatic conditions through urban physics.

The typology of the towers has decreasing floor plate, where the large scale offices (>1,500m²) are located at the bottom, which may sometimes provide close to 4000m² in a single floor, are located close to the grade level, while the top floors of every tower accommodate small offices with some residential component (SoHo type, or offices below 500m², which accounts for 15% of the total office floor plate) The decreasing floor plate, which has been enabled by a corrugation system, enables the floor plate grow without losing a minimum amount of day lighting.