urban sponge:
BAU324 Cixi Commercial and Culture Center
Cixi City, Zhejiang Province, China
Discipline
PlanningTypology
Urban DesignCity
Cixi City, Zhejiang Province, ChinaDate
2008Status
Invited competition, unbuiltClient
Cixi Urban Planning BureauProgram
Mixed use district and residential community including office, retail and cultural institutionsUrban Sponge: Cixi Urban Presinct
The current primary objective for Chinese business/entertainment/culture districts is to symbolise notions of progress via heroic architecture, large open spaces, wide streets and large-scale single developments. This satisfies the market demand for modernity and the governments’ need for demonstrable progress.
BAU’s proposal creates the required super scaled modernity but simultaneously provides a city of intimate scale public spaces, flexible small-scale development, and convenient living. The project attempts to present Cixi as a highly developed humane settlement with values beyond those of economic progress.
The site is conceived of as a sponge which absorbs the influence of the river parkland environment to the west and the urban environment to the east. Along the main road artery an array of towers combine with a continuous winding perimeter block with active edge to provide an urbanism of prestige and permanence. To the riverside edge the building heights are reduced and a winding plan produces south facing active edges facing the park.
Market driven aspirations for chaos-free, green, safe environments dominate all decision making in the planning of residential districts. BAU’s proposal satisfies market demands but also simultaneously creates a district with social and economic opportunities, with a great level of convenience, and with places of unpredictable urban qualities. City beautiful objectives are met by providing an urban scale green hill, upon which residential towers float in ideal modernist space. A street grid dissects this hill to create blocks, with active commercial frontages at ground level, and green housing communities above.
- Infrastructure
- Public
- Residential
- Healthcare
- Education
- Culture
- Office
- Retail
- Hotel
- Hospitality
- Mixed Use
- Sports
- Planning
- Urban Design
- Public Landscapes
- Private Landscapes
- Playgrounds
- Structures & Pavillions
- Residential
- Healthcare
- Education
- Culture
- Office
- Retail
- Hotel
- Hospitality
- 2023
- 2024
- 2021
- 2020
- 2019
- 2018
- 2017
- 2016
- 2015
- 2014
- 2013
- 2012
- 2011
- 2005-2010
- 2000-2005
- 1990-2000
Public Landscapes
Playgrounds
2016
2024
2023
Public
Education
Private Landscapes
2015
2020
2000-2005
Structures & Pavillions
2019
Office
2005-2010
2021
Culture
Planning
Urban Design
2013
Retail
Hospitality
Mixed Use
Sports
Education
2018
2017
Office
Culture
Retail
2011
Residential
Infrastructure
Hotel
Hotel
Healthcare
2014
2012
Healthcare
Hospitality
1990-2000
Residential
Forming part of Shanghai’s:
BAU427 Suzhou Creek Linkong Skate Park
100 Parks + One Eco Corridor:
BAU606 Jiangyin Xicheng Canal Parks
BAU641 Chonggu Experimental School，Years-1-9
an excessive minimalism:
BAU478-A U-Park Incubator, Shang Qing Huai, Nanjing
more Piazza Navona than Levittown
BAU618 Tianyou Experimental Primary School and Kindergarten, Suzhou
clarity and unpredictable adjacencies:
BAU119 Jinqiao Sports & Leisure Centre
landscape, urbanity, networks, the suitcase, and the paper-bag:
BAU592 Qingpu Zhaoxiang Sports Park, Supermarket + Hotel
more than a frozen moment:
BAU659 ZOOM OASIS, Linkong Perimeter Super Block
look! up in the sky!
BAU210 Shanghai Hongxuan Office Building
Made in China, no question – Invented in China, of course:
BAU588 You-Du R+D Development, Jinqiao, Shanghai
a hybrid infrastructure:
BAU679 Yuandang Bridge
large plains, small grains, and the in-between:
BAU686 Longgang Arts Centre, Shenzhen
on reflection:
BAU674 Qingpu Performing Arts Centre
Place, typologies, programs, and public life:
BAU567 PUKOU COMMUNITY CENTRE
more than just a technopolis:
BAU206 Hangzhou Xiasha New City Centre
a second network embracing history, smalllness, and complexity:
BAU193 Chengdu West New District
a park for everyone and everyone in their park:
BAU189 Hongqiao Park
disorder – not randonmness but beyond order:
BAU182 Chengdu East Village
mosaics of teaching, networks of learning:
BAU149 Huai’an Tertiary Education District
walled cities within a walled city:
BAU147 Xi’an High-Tech Precinct CBD
co-existence without incompatibility:
BAU138 Jiangxi Xinyu Networks City
space-time conflict:
BAU544 Shanghai University Campus
clarity and unpredictable adjacencies:
BAU119 Jinqiao Sports & Leisure Centre
Journeys AND destination, not just destinations:
BAU569 Nanjing Youfu West Street Primary School
continuous loops and internal courts:
BAU603 Suzhou kindergarten no. 3
weaving and stitching:
BAU616 Jiangyin Greenway Loop (stage 1. Eastern Segment)
a constructed and cultured topography:
BAU269 Jindi Green Land Club
it takes a village to educate a child:
BAU602 Suzhou Sci-tech City Xizhu Kindergarten
city typologies, cultural traditions, contemporary theories, and spaceships:
BAU600 Shanghai Qingpu Newtown 30-class Primary School
artificial plateau:building more site:
BAU599 Shanghai Qingpu Newtown 24-Class Junior High school
it is the least we could do: minimalism in an environment of expressionism
BAU584 Hangzhou Tonglu Office Building
more Piazza Navona than Levittown
BAU618 Tianyou Experimental Primary School and Kindergarten, Suzhou
classrooms AND the in-between: teaching and learning beyond the classroom
BAU610 Taizhou School
other institutions for this new century:
BAU604 Qingpu District People’s Court
building the unfinished:
BAU003M The Victorian Pride Centre
minimal AND maximal:
BAU583 Exhibition Pavilion Gaochun, Nanjing
small in scale large in monumentality:
BAU027 Wyndham Mausoleum
multiple rooms of difference:
BAU253 Shanghai Qingpu Renheng Yunjie Entrance Garden
active cultural edges, passive natural centres:
BAU402 Shanghai Qingpu Qin Yuan Lake Park
intimate, cool, sheltered and lively:
BAU268 Xinqiao Commercial Street + Shop Housing
formal teaching and informal learning:
BAU540 Gaochun New District Kindergaten to Year Nine School
an exercise in robustness:
BAU333 Jiangyin Huifu Office Tower
effortless complexity: learning from water-town:
BAU222-2 Shanghai Qingpu Zhujiajiao Commercial
no longer but not only:
BAU213-3 Jindi Yunhu Market
actualizing the virtual:
BAU 213-2 Jindi Yunhu Sports and Activity Center
geometry, history, art, craft, iconography, and pragmatics: an exploration of intention, coding, narrative, and meaning
BAU021 Olinda Green + Public WC
there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in:
BAU015 Jan Juc House, Victoria, Australia
BAU009 house in the sky
surreal adjacencies:
BAU019 Marymount Residence, Guest Accommodation, Stable + Office
mini-city of culture:
BAU590 Nanjing Pukou Haiqiao Community Service Center
keeping a low profile:
BAU 214 Suzhou Qingshan Hotel Phase I
positive space, human scale, and a blue-green net:
BAU213-1 Jindi Yunhu Housing
dis-integrated guest houses :
BAU495 Pine Pillow Retreat
don’t look at me, don’t look at me:
BAU436 Nanjing Jiangning Demonstration Kindergarten
new buildings, old topography:
BAU424 Suzhou Qingshan Hotel Phase 2
defining the perimeter, programming the centre, inhabiting them both:
BAU238 Town Plaza, Xinqiao, Jiangyin
turning outside-in:
BAU199-2 Wuxi Fudi Forte Parktown Sales Pavilion
beyond PODS, networks, and nodes:
BAU552 Chengbei Urban Design project, Nanjing
podium and bill(ding)board:
BAU547 Nanjing Yaxi Town Central Hospital
inner sanctuary, outer crust:
BAU546 Nanjing Gaochun Qiqiao Hospital
an excessive minimalism:
BAU478-A U-Park Incubator, Shang Qing Huai, Nanjing
a plane of reference:
BAU474 Nanjing Zijin Gaochun Science and Technology City
rips in the fabric by place:
BAU461 Nanjing Tangshan Tourist Resort South District
other ideas of hospital:
BAU446 Fuding Hospital
architecture AND terrain:
BAU445 Suzhou Hi-tech District Cultural Center
crust: in-between and on the edge
BAU426 Shaoxing Jianhu Keyan Tourist Resort Planning
eco urbanism:
BAU425 Chongqing Eco Valley City
microcosm:
BAU348 Kunshan Hyper Complex
beyond the picturesque:
BAU347 Kunshan White Pagoda Park
don’t just re-use the typology, improve it!
BAU310 Hangzhou Changbanxiang Housing
building a community not just housing:
BAU302 Shanghai Ludi Baoshan
upside down program – ‘private’ circulation becoming ‘public’ circulation:
BAU254 Shanghai Wai Gao Qiao Culture Centre
extra-large private space as public space:
BAU199 Parktown, Housing, Fudi Forte, Wuxi
mini-me:
BAU197 Jindi Sanlin Pavilion
staggering:
BAU191 Wuhan Cuiwei Housing
urban camouflage:
BAU227 Hangzhou Sports Centre
the resort at the end of the yellow dirt road:
BAU543 Emerald Village at Soul Bay
critical regionalism and abstraction:
BAU487 Nanjing Yaxi Citta-Slow
hospital for the ill, health care for the healthy, aged care for the elderly: BAU469 Zhaoxiang Hospital
tear open the package: BAU247 Qingpu NGS Supermarket
urban sponge:
BAU324 Cixi Commercial and Culture Center
lyrical islands in pragmatic seas:
BAU530-1 Nanjing Gaochun Transport Interchange – Stage One
fractured enormity:
BAU281 Chongqing Huarun
ring roads AND peripheral parks:
BAU243 Shanghai Ring Park
simple box OR 3 points in space – you choose:
BAU204-2 Ningbo Wanda Office
many utopias:
BAU129 Xinhu Pearl City Housing Development
a close family:
BAU125 Zhejiang Power Company HQ
stretching, squeezing, bending, trimming:
BAU550 Huanglong Xigu Urban Design
BOTH networks AND objects:
BAU497 Wyndham Cove Eco Sub-urb
ethics, democracy, difference:
BAU470 Towards a Socially Sustainable Canberra
warp and woof:
BAU460 Jingzhou Museum
sustainable technologies for clean living:
BAU396 Nanjing Residential
network of learning:
BAU341 Yushanwan School
not in galleries, but a way of seeing:
BAU338 Jingqiao Ramp Restaurant
shopping sandwich:
BAU321 Jiangyin Wuxing Commercial Centre
celebrating the collective, the intimate, the sustainable, and the local:
BAU312 Suzhou School
21st century Ponte Vecchio:
BAU287 Shanghai 2010 World Expo Bridge
antidote: not another ghetto city:
BAU285 Chengdu North Central
at last …finally …some diversity:
BAU282 Jindi Sanlin Office
recycling and beyond
BAU264 Shanghai Jiashan Market
an assemblage of difference:
BAU256 Shanghai Hongqiao Performing Arts Center
streets as shelters, bars as amphitheaters, landscapes as playgrounds:
BAU235 Jinqiao Community Bars
reduce, reuse, recycle:
BAU220 Shanghai Sculpture Space
binary oppositions defining a field of operation – all we wanted was a park:
BAU122 Xiamen International Exhibition Centre
the hotel as microcosm of the city:
BAU018 Marque Hotel
…very strange:
BAU016 Penny Lane
the beautiful and the extraordinary:
BAU013 Hopetoun Bush Resort
a dynamic yet stable vehicle:
BAU510 Suzhou Tram Co. Headquarters
palimpsest:
BAU486A Docklands Park, Yangtze River, Jiangyin
innovation both inside and out:
BAU433 Zhangjing Nobel Lake Park & Network
exquisite corpse
BAU416 Genetic City Caofeidian
landscape becomes urban design becomes architecture:
BAU390 Duolan Dong Dong Mixed Use Complex
BAU386 Symbiotic City
repetition and difference:
BAU384 Kunshan Pavilions
no longer drowning – waving:
BAU339-2&3 Suzhou Creek Promenade
yet another point of view:
BAU339-1 Suzhou Creek Serpentine Park
ordinary not heroic, symbolic not monumental:
BAU318 Hangzhou Xiaoshan Government Headquarters
woven threads:
BAU234 Jiangyin Arbour Park
private precincts, public networks:
BAU226 Pudong Yangjing
creative networks:
BAU224 Chengdu Fenghuangshan
maximize commuication and cross fertilization:
BAU208 Linping New City Centre
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