Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) has officially broken ground on West Lake 66 in Hangzhou, China. The project will form a new elevated green pedestrian link between West Lake and the Grand Canal, two of Hangzhou’s essential landmarks.
The 194,000-sm project includes five office towers with space suited to technology startups and young professionals, a boutique hotel, public parks, and an active, mixed-use podium. KPF parametrically linked shadow impacts, visibility from streets, unobstructed views, maximized daylight, and other key factors in an algorithm that organized optimal massing along the greenway to determine the position of the buildings and the overall site organization.
Plomp for KPF.
See Also: A series of glass ‘igloos’ create the world’s northernmost hotel
The buildings’ facades optimize daylight while the overall project was designed with a modular, fluid porosity that reflects the material heritage of the city and its craftspeople using local materials like terracotta, stone, and wood.
Plomp for KPF.
The podium is designed in sinuous bands of rectangular cells, each one responding to the program within, that tie the site together. The cells can be updated over the lifespan of the building. The podium also stacks a mix of uses to form a layered program that ensures future flexibility. Office space opens to a green roof that spans the length of the podium to create a public sky park.
Plomp for KPF.
Plomp for KPF.
Plomp for KPF.
Jim Keen for KPF.
Related Stories
Mixed-Use | Mar 21, 2017
Studio Gang commissioned to design its first Canadian building
The project will be a mixed-use tower at the southwest corner of Yonge and Delisle in Toronto.
Retail Centers | Mar 9, 2017
When everyone shops online, what happens to mixed-use retail?
NBBJ’s David Yuan explains how changing retail trends are creating new opportunities for urban experiences and public space.
High-rise Construction | Mar 3, 2017
Detroit's tallest tower to rise at site of former J.L Hudson's Department Store
SHoP Architects and Hamilton Anderson Associates will design the 52-story building.
Mixed-Use | Mar 1, 2017
New hotel and residential tower coming to San Francisco’s Transbay neighborhood
The ground-up development will feature 255 hotel rooms and 69 residential units.
Mixed-Use | Feb 27, 2017
Tallest tower in Miami to begin construction in January 2019
The tower will reach a height of 1,049 feet, the maximum height permitted by the FAA in Miami.
Mixed-Use | Feb 23, 2017
5-tower scheme revealed for Zhengzhou, China
The towers will vary in height and emerge from a shared retail podium.
Mixed-Use | Feb 22, 2017
Hunt Development Group selected to spearhead Cabrini-Green redevelopment
The Chicago Housing Authority selected the firm to develop mixed-income housing and retail space where the infamous housing project once stood.
Mixed-Use | Feb 21, 2017
Coconut Grove’s newest mixed-use development springs from a converted parking garage
Terra says the development will be the first newly built office building in central Coconut Grove in over 20 years.
High-rise Construction | Feb 17, 2017
Zaha Hadid Architects-designed building to have the world’s tallest atrium
A 190-meter atrium will rise the full height of the building between two twisting sections.
Mixed-Use | Feb 8, 2017
Santiago Calatrava’s first major UK project will be the heart of the Greenwich Peninsula transformation
Peninsula Place will cost £1 billion and act as a gateway to the new, master-planned district.
