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
| Dec 12, 2011
Mojo Stumer takes top honors at AIA Long Island Design Awards
Firm's TriBeCa Loft wins "Archi" for interior design.
| Dec 5, 2011
Summit Design+Build begins renovation of Chicago’s Esquire Theatre
The 33,000 square foot building will undergo an extensive structural remodel and core & shell build-out changing the building’s use from a movie theater to a high-end retail center.
| Nov 28, 2011
Leo A Daly and McCarthy Building complete Casino Del Sol expansion in Tucson, Ariz.
Firms partner with Pascua Yaqui Tribe to bring new $130 million Hotel, Spa & Convention Center to the Tucson, Ariz., community.
| Nov 15, 2011
Suffolk Construction breaks ground on the Victor housing development in Boston
Project team to manage construction of $92 million, 377,000 square-foot residential tower.
| Nov 3, 2011
Hardin Construction tops out Orlando Embassy Suites
The project began in April 2011 and is expected to open in fall 2012.
| Sep 30, 2011
Kilbourn joins Perkins Eastman
Kilbourn joins with more than 28 years of design and planning experience for communities, buildings, and interiors in hospitality, retail/mixed-use, corporate office, and healthcare.
| May 20, 2011
Hotels taking bath out of the bathroom
Bathtubs are disappearing from many hotels across the country as chains use the freed-up space to install ever more luxurious showers, according to a recent USAToday report. Of course, we reported on this move--and 6 other hospitality trends--back in 2006 in our special report "The Inn Things: Seven Radical New Trends in Hotel Design."
| May 18, 2011
Design diversity celebrated at Orange County club
The Orange County, Calif., firm NKDDI designed the 22,000-sf Luna Lounge & Nightclub in Pomona, Calif., to be a high-end multipurpose event space that can transition from restaurant to lounge to nightclub to music venue.
| Apr 12, 2011
Retail complex enjoys prime Abu Dhabi location
The Galleria at Sowwah Square in Abu Dhabi will be built in a prime location within Sowwah Island that also includes a five-star Four Seasons Hotel, the healthcare facility Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, and nearly two million sf of Class A office space.
