UK’s Metropolitan Office of innovation have aimed for designing a regeneration scheme for a new mixed-use development in the Jiangsu Province of China. The Baoye Sui-Ning City Plaza is designed to celebrate the creative blend between tradition and modern lifestyle in the city of Sui-Ning.Interestingly, MOI’s the Shanghai office have chosen a ‘forgotten’ city to introduce the development to. The new YOHO City within Sui Ning is designed to represent a new architectural landmark for the state of being ‘forgotten’. A main focus in MOI’s approach was to achieve a sense of balance in the execution of the project. The state of being ‘forgotten’ is interpreted as Sui Ning being a city of old Chinese traditions not quite accommodated to the modern-day needs and uses. Therefore, the city’s historical and spatial identity plays a crucial role in deriving the design driver for MOI.
Via Kostof, 1993, p. 13
The province of Jiangsu, in close proximity to Shanghai, carries a significant value in its historic contribution. Famous for its silk weaving, that goes on to be the studio’s design rationale. The metaphoric interpretation of the silk weaving is further developed in an aesthetic and both tradition-based and innovative composition: the architects have strived to bring together streets, boulevards, plazas and squares and link them to one another just like stitching. Thus, creating the ultimate and functional city fabric that is currently disjointed and scattered.The outcome from the improved city infrastructure is to achieve regeneration in the area, as well as to bring out the most vibrant and culturally significant side of the whole province. The metaphor for silk weaving is further developed as an analogy of how city habitat functions and this is the kernel, the essence of MOI’s aims. A central focal element in their design therefore is the intervention, which derives from the metaphor-analogy synchronisation. It [the intervention] is in the form of a single tower with a dynamic slope. It is designed to offer river view spectacles and accommodate a sense of comfort in its interior habitat: hotel, serviced apartments, offices and outdoor terrace access with views towards the exterior landscape – the commercial plaza and courtyard.Therefore, balance, as considered in Chinese traditional Ying-Yang belief, is ultimately achieved through creating the intervention tower linked to the traditional Chinese courtyard space. As the Ying-Yang, the project offers 241.994 sqm of harmony between innovation and tradition, between built environment and nature.
Courtesy of Metropolitan Office of Innovation
