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
| Aug 11, 2010
Arup, SOM top BD+C's ranking of the country's largest mixed-use design firms
A ranking of the Top 75 Mixed-Use Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
10% of world's skyscraper construction on hold
Emporis, the largest provider of global building data worldwide, reported that 8.7% of all skyscrapers listed as "under construction" in its database had been put on hold. Most of these projects have been halted in the second half of 2008. According to Emporis statistics, the United States had been hit the worst: at the beginning of 2008, "Met 3" in Miami was the only U.S. skyscraper listed as being "on hold". In the second half of the year, 19 projects followed suit.
| Aug 11, 2010
Structure Tone, Turner among the nation's busiest reconstruction contractors, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 75 Reconstruction Contractors based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Portland Cement Association offers blast resistant design guide for reinforced concrete structures
Developed for designers and engineers, "Blast Resistant Design Guide for Reinforced Concrete Structures" provides a practical treatment of the design of cast-in-place reinforced concrete structures to resist the effects of blast loads. It explains the principles of blast-resistant design, and how to determine the kind and degree of resistance a structure needs as well as how to specify the required materials and details.
| Aug 11, 2010
New website highlights government tax incentives for large commercial buildings
Energy Retrofit Group (ERG), the subsidiary of 40-year-old, award-winning Adache Group Architects, Inc., has announced the creation of their new energy conservation web site: www.energy-rg.com.
| Aug 11, 2010
Gensler, HOK, HDR among the nation's leading reconstruction design firms, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 100 Reconstruction Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
The Joule Hotel
Dallas, Texas
The Joule Hotel in Dallas, designed by local firm Coburn & Smith, was constructed in 1927 as the Dallas National Bank Building. Originally one of the finest examples of gothic revival architecture in Texas, it had had most of its gothic elements removed over the years after being converted into an office building and later abandoned. What was left had fallen into disrepair.
