A proposal from London-based architecture firm Tonkin Liu won a competition to design a new trade center in Zhengzhou, China. The project, titled the “Cradle Towers,” will comprise five towers of varying heights and rise from a shared retail and leisure podium.
The mixed-use towers will form an urban mountainscape and offer residential, office, and hotel accommodations. The retail podium will be hollowed out to form a ring that encircles sheltered, landscape paths and gardens. The ring will also be lifted in areas to allow the inner courtyard to spill out beyond the podium and connect with the city.
Additional vertical courtyards will be created at the base of the towers to bring daylight into the buildings and vertical gardens will creep up the buildings’ facades, which will be covered in fritted glass. Each of the five towers will have a rooftop glass house that screens the mechanical plant floors while also adding an element of greenery to the skyline.
If you are feeling a bit of déjà vu while looking at this project, you aren’t alone. Tonkin Liu’s design bears a striking resemblance to Santiago Calatrava’s recently revealed Greenwich Peninsula. Each design has multiple tapering towers rising from a shared podium. However, the Greenwich Peninsula design has fewer towers, three compared to five, that are all a uniform height.
A construction date for Cradle Towers has yet to be determined.
Rendering courtesy of Tonkin Liu.
Rendering courtesy of Tonkin Liu.
Related Stories
Wood | Oct 19, 2018
Design revealed for mass-timber residential tower in Milwaukee
The developer is confident that the city will approve construction, which is scheduled to start next year.
Mixed-Use | Oct 15, 2018
35-story mixed-use tower will be tallest residential building in Long Beach
Studio One Eleven designed the tower.
Mixed-Use | Oct 5, 2018
Newark’s first luxury residential tower in nearly 60 years officially opens
BLT Architects designed the project.
Mixed-Use | Oct 4, 2018
Four-story hotel and adjacent affordable housing community opens in California’s Sonoma County
Axis/GFA Architecture and Design was the architect for the project.
Mixed-Use | Sep 25, 2018
Dexter Yard to provide Seattle with 540,000 sf of mixed-use space
SkB Architects designed the development.
Mixed-Use | Sep 14, 2018
Six-story structure combines a parking garage with street-level retail
Eskew+Dumez+Ripple designed the structure.
Reconstruction & Renovation | Aug 22, 2018
Former shopping mall becomes mixed-use urban complex in Beijing
Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects designed the project.
Mixed-Use | Aug 13, 2018
Florida mixed-use development uses wellness as the backbone of its design
Zyscovich Architects designed the project.
Mixed-Use | Jul 17, 2018
Water Street Tampa’s developer reveals details about this project’s public spaces
This $3 billion waterfront neighborhood will also include three hotels.
Urban Planning | Jul 6, 2018
This is Studio Gang's first design project in Canada
The building’s hexagonal façade will provide passive solar heating and cooling.