Designed by dom arquitectura, the masterplan in Huizhou, China focuses on the traditional Chinese cultural concepts and social issues. Their response was to group housing towers in two lines, with an staggered arrangement, forming a double perimeter line and leaving a large green space in the site centre. The concentration of a big green space will enhance the CO2 consumption and improve the users air quality. More images and architects’ description after the break.

To get started on the project, we wanted to get into the foundation of Chinese culture and its visual universe. We studied different concepts: the horizontal lines power of traditional architecture, its temples, the lattices textures, which controlled the privacy formerly. And also the energy flow concepts, like the feng shui, or social issues such as the dragon mythological figure.

On the other side, before starting the project, we considered to do a deep land and climate analysis. Studying the ground position in respect to the main routes to the city of Huizhou and Bolou, its environment and also the environmental problems, trying to solve the excessive pollution, exploit natural energy, water harvesting and use wind and solar energy. Considering all these points, we began to make some bioclimatic decisions that affect the future distribution of the whole set. The initial program consisted of about 20 residential towers, a mall, an apartments building and a hotel and office tower.

The floor towers’ position allow the of the north wind flow through inside the land and helps the evaporation of the environment humidity. The position of the mall, hotel, and apartments in the south part generates a noise barrier on the main highway, and gives the green housing area a quiet environment. To encourage basking in homes and green exterior is proposed that the tower heights will vary depending on the position. So the whole set grows in height from the south, where the lower towers are placed, to the north part and the outer perimeter where there are the higher ones. This move generated a dynamism, that reminded us the dragon drawing and also crowned, as his head, in the hotel tower as the most iconic part of the project.

The housing tower floor type, is presented as a 21x28m rectangle where the corners are rounded and generates a continuous terrace, which changes its width organically. That gives us a typology adaptable and flexible to the interior space needs. Proposed towers marks the horizontal long slab, and poses different lattices types on its perimeter. This will generate a double skin, which will control the privacy, protect from direct sunlight and promote a greener facade, where the plants can be part of it.

The hotel and office tower, contrary, arises with a tougher facade based on glass, that will change their tone and understood as an attractive feature, which also maintains the slabs flatness of the rest of the towers.

Architects: dom arquitectura Location: Huizhou, China Team: Miguel Á. Borrás, Marta García-Orte, Joaquim Rigau, Pablo Serrano Collaborators 3D: PlayTime Surface: 410,000 m2