A challenging and vast mixed-used development on the outskirts of Beijing featuring high-density residential, cultural attractions, retail and a sales center, plus a myriad of entertainment and F&B venues for both local and regional visitors.
As a client, Sky Ocean is keen to differentiate their product and brand with better-designed environments, and invest greatly in the urban and landscape plan. This willingness to embrace something different allowed us to break away from the standard city grid formation and introduce meandering boulevards leading to a large central park that provides an urban living room for the residents and even indoor gardens for those cold winter months. The park will also play host to the Air and Space Museum, currently under construction.
Our biggest challenge lay in creating four distinctive residential districts despite using the same building footprint. By simply “wrapping” each neighborhood in a different texture they become instantly identifiable and offer the residents a unique setting to call home.
Hetzel Design is pleased to assist Oscar Vina Hotel Ltd. to develop Vietnam’s most prestigious development scheme. Saigon Phoenix World comprises a mixed-use development and integrated resort. It is a unique, high-end, large-scale mixed-use financial/commercial, entertainment, retail, and residential project for Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) that is located strategically between the new international airport and the city itself.
Combining large scale and innovative commercial uses with destination retail, bars, restaurants, hotels, MICE, leisure, residential and performance facilities, Saigon Phoenix World will deliver a varied and exciting mix that is sustainable financially and reinforces the project as the integrated destination resort both nationally and regionally.
The focal point of the Phoenix Island scheme is the iconic Flame Tower, a fiery torch of layered glass and light.
Hetzel Design was tasked to design a permanent home for COIFER in China.
COIFAIR brings together different countries, capital, projects, information, experts, services and other key elements and offers copious investment opportunities and cooperation prospects. It is the foremost platform for Chinese enterprises to go abroad, a portal for foreign entities to attract Chinese investments, as well as a professional platform for all participants to develop international bilateral and multilateral investment cooperation.
Each year, COIFAIR attracts participants from over 100 countries and regions. More than 1,000 major state-owned enterprises and well-known privately held companies from China use the COIFAIR platform to network with foreign investment agencies. In the past, both Chinese and foreign influential mainstream media have provided extensive coverage of the event.
Hetzel Design devised an infinity loop scheme featuring waterways, linear parks, high tech pavilions, RDE and mixed-use neighborhoods. The iconic twisted tower serves as a focal point of the urban composition.
This massive master plan takes place on the lake edge in Suzhou, one of the most beautiful sites in China’s affluent Yang-Tze River Delta District. The program called for a large commercial component, consisting of smart offices, incubators for IT companies, retail, dining, cultural offerings (museum, performance hall), as well as lots of entertainment including resorts, a theme park and a water park.
In order to maximize the presence of water, we brought the lake into the project by reenergizing numerous existing waterways and lake extensions on site. Linear parks were used as a connective tissue for the plan. Modern, sustainable structures follow the invisible vectors set by the forces of nature and agriculture of a long time ago.
Following on from our involvement in the Futura City master plan, we were asked to design a very dynamic mixed-use development with a strong cultural component, much closer to the Beijing City Center. The program consisted of retail, office space, hotel, museum, and a performance theater on a very urban site. We used Chinese folklore in search for metaphors.
The performance theater, the crown jewel of the scheme, was conceived as a pile of Chinese Jade bi-discs. The museum wraps around it like an ancient wood musical instrument. We shaped the office towers as Chinese Junk sails, angled to maximize solar gain. The ship is sailing HOME- heading towards the moon gate shaped hotel.
Hetzel design was commissioned to design a brand new mixed-use development in the center of Qian’an city. Located at a major intersection, twin towers create a gateway to the city, and the development is contained within a meandering greenway that provides the pedestrian circulation route. A variety of retail, entertainment venues and cultural activities are offered on either side.
Qian’an is a city built on the steel industry with numerous mills still driving the economy of this region of China. Using inspiration and references from steel processing, the building forms and shapes are fluid, with extensive use of kinetic facades adding to the overall dynamism.
Fu Hua Corporation asked Hetzel Design to come up with an innovative scheme for the new Chang Sha City Center and transportation hub. A new, state of the art subway and train station is at the heart of this scheme, a major incubator for urban development of businesses, hotels, branded apartments, sports and entertainment venues. A pair of iconic mixed-use towers creates a GATEWAY, marking the most prominent intersection already enhanced by a circular pedestrian bridge and a giant LED LANTERN. Hetzel has tried to balance the heroic (and massive scale) overall design statement with the introduction of small scale, intimate pedestrian-friendly environments, narrow streets, alleyways, river promenades, plazas and parks.
The intent was to design a plan that could accommodate a museum, hotel, outdoor event plaza and a retail complex. The bulldozers were lined up and ready to go, so we really had to nail our colors to the mast! We made use of an existing basement plan that was flexible enough to allow us to refine the hotel and conference center layouts even as piling commenced. Discovering some additional area, we introduced a water feature in front of the porte-cochere, lending it the ‘resort” feel.
For the plaza, we veered away from using a traditional stadium footprint and instead we bound a large celebration plaza within an oval shaped building that functioned as part museum, part retail/entertainment venue buzzing with plentiful food and beverage offers.
The sheer size of the scheme meant that it was a challenge to divide into coherent areas. One idea was to use intersecting sloping roofs and turn them into roof gardens, a modern twist on the “Hollywood Bowl”. The entrances to the celebration plaza are key pieces and needed to convey a sense of drama and wonder at each junction. Our idea of hanging two hyperbolical-parabolic canopies from a line of toroidal columns provides a daring, yet elegant solution
Concept design to grand opening took just 18 months.
An ambitious plan by the local government in Sichuan Province – a vibrant new city that embraces and celebrates its industrial heart.
At the epicenter of the development is a busy freeway interchange that we decided to incorporate into the larger context as a giant, concrete spaghetti-like sculptural piece.
There are, additionally, new parts of the city that follow more traditional urban planning concepts; wide boulevards, a network of canals, linear retail and entertainment venues, civic buildings and monuments.
Art Expo City is an exciting new breed of development aimed at promoting Beijing’s burgeoning arts scene. Located in a former agricultural town outside of Beijing, it has long been an artist’s colony and home to the largest arts festival in the region.
The project comprises of an “art-scape” park, art museum, hotel, trade and conference centers, housing and numerous bars and cafes to complete a vibrant arts destination district. At the very heart of it is a large park; a canvas for installations, sculptures and water features. This green space will eventually link the main plazas and two anchors and cover an underground street that facilitates the “back of house” functions.
At either end of the park, two bold architectural statements contain the development and interact with each other’s form. The Art Museum and the Art Hotel invoke the symbol of infinity, supporting art as an eternal concept. This form also provides the template for the internal circulation route. The Art Hotel, a seemingly conventional structure upon first look, then surprises with a twist. A 10-storey contortion of the building’s core begins with the lobby and concludes in a dramatic sky-bar and gallery space.
Completing the scene is a meandering street with galleries, retail, bars and restaurants lending a metropolitan vibe.
When complete, the Art Expo City will be a beacon for artists and art aficionados alike and a thriving economy for Beijing and the region.
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