UNStudio has unveiled design for a new mixed-use complex in the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Area in Hangzhou, China. 

The new complex, named Hiwell Amber Centre, will cover a total of 260,574-square-metre area and consist of a mix of offices, hotel, apartments, art spaces, retail and a variety of other amenities to the heart of Hangzhou's new city centre, Qianjiang Century City.

The new mixed-use Hiwell Amber Centre will add vitality, diversity and innovation to the site, while catering to the rapid development of the area's economic, cultural and technological needs. The new complex is currently under construction at the site. 

UNStudio stated that "it will accelerate the prosperity of this new central business district; a hub that will provide a full range of services to local residents and visitors from around the world."

On a site that also hosts the NBBJ-designed Olympic Sports Centre, the 2023 Asian Games complex, and the Hangzhou Century Center, the “Hangzhou Arch”, the Hiwell Amber Centre is intended to embrace the city’s cultural history and reflects the vibrant cityscape. 

The firm creates a flowing, tapestry-like facade, evoking the reminiscent of Hangzhou’s embroidery, and its smooth glass curtain peels apart to create a welcoming gesture of openness to the city.

"The architecture of the towers creates an effect of timeless simplicity," said UNStudio co-founder Ben van Berkel.  

"Within Hangzhou’s landmark-heavy skyline, the buildings are rooted in the city’s urban culture and its landscape through an open and welcoming gesture." 

"Our design proposes a vibrant mixed-use attractor, both vertically and horizontally, that caters to working, living and leisure," Van Berkel added.

The new Hiwell Amber Centre will comprise a mixed tower housing a hotel - called Andaz Hotel - and offices, an additional office tower and two high-end apartment towers. 

All of them are arranged atop a plinth that accommodates a conference centre, a hotel ballroom, commercial units, an art museum and community facilities.

In contrast to typical high-density commercial complexes, UNStudio’s design for the development redefines the mixed-use urban landscape by introducing a variety of podiums, public and dynamic open spaces. Additionally, the studio created a large scale "Urban Living Room" topped by four towers with integrated functions.

The entire site is composed to echo the existing landscape conditions, while enabling unobstructed views towards adjacent buildings and the river for the four 140-metre-height towers. 

This in turn frees up public space in the centre of the site to form a central courtyard, hotel plazas and landscaped corridors, with the podiums scattered around these layered public plazas. The arrangement of the towers therefore provides open views, but also creates a permeable urban interface at ground level that opens up in all directions, inviting visitors into the centre of the site.

The site further takes advantage of its proximity to the Dongfeng River, a tributary of the Qiantang River, to introduce natural green landscaping and waterscaping.

The Canopy

The facade of the hotel will feature glass canopies to reinforce the architectural concept of creating a gesture of openness. The extensive curtain of the hotel tower flows down the facade and unfolds like wings across the lower zones. 

A curved horizontal surface then wraps around the four towers, connecting the individual programmes while providing a frame for the internal and external courtyards.

Towards the ground level, the extensive canopy interweaves with the glass curtain wall to provide open views. The scaled glass reflects sunlight from different angles to create a shimmering visual effect that echoes the endless flow of the Qiantang River. The canopy meanwhile extends downwards with tree-like columns connecting it to the ground, providing a comfortable social environment for all surrounded by nature.

L1 overall ground floor layout plazas

"The translucent canopy also functions as an environmentally responsive element," said UNStudio. 

"Its ringed shape creates a covered central walkway that accelerates air circulation while providing a shield from the elements without compromising on daylight." 

"As such, the structure forms an all-weather micro-environment under the canopy that encourages residents and visitors to interact and relax in the outdoor public spaces," the firm added.

The translucent canopy will be integrated with glass curtain walls to provide maximum daylight inside the building. However, to avoid excessive solar heat penetration, vertical fins will be placed on the glass facade of the hotel tower to effectively solve this problem. 

L2 overall secound floor layout

The design aims to create a comfortable, naturally ventilated environment for the vertical spaces.

The design logic applied to the glass wall, frame pattern and materials on the lower levels merges with the tower facade. This ensures the fluidity of the shell as well as the correlation of the canopy and dynamic public spaces. 

At ground level, the facade takes on a human-scale with smaller volumes. These volumes are introduced to achieve horizontal variance and connect with the adjoining street.

Overall view

Urban Living Room

"In addition to creating a large architectural gesture, it is essential to design a building that is open to all", said Hannes Pfau, Partner at UNStudio. 

"Our strategy was to focus on the human scale, especially in the lower volumes."

"We worked with a concept by which the podium and the plazas act as an 'Urban Living Room'. This enables a human-centric community that shapes the civic spaces and forges connections with the city; places that people can easily access and where they can interact with each other," Pfau added.

The lower volumes are designed to reflect the ancient Liangzhu village in Hangzhou, with the podium representing a modern reinterpretation of one to three storey buildings and enhancing local cultural identity.

Façade

The firm calles this composition as "the village-like volumes" that are sheltered by the giant canopy, which serve as a conference centre, commercial units, a hotel ballroom, a roof garden and an art museum. 

By offering a fluid network of plazas, these plazas are aimed at creating strong pedestrian connections throughout the site and enhancing the village-like experience. Semi-outdoor areas on the middle floors and roof gardens further provide places for residents to relax and interact.

Program diagram

Village-like pebbles

UNStudio won a competition to design a new mixed-use development in Düsseldorf, Germany. The firm is also working on a new mixed-use development in Nanjing. 

UNStudio and b720 Arquitectura together with engineering firm Esteyco are working on the remodel of Madrid-Chamartín Clara Campoamor Station and its urban integration in Spain.

Project facts

Project name: Hiwell Amber Centre

Architects: UNStudio

Client: Hiwell Properties                      

Location: Hangzhou, China                   

Building surface: 260,574m2, 169,310m2 (Aboveground), 91,264m2 (Underground)   

Building site: 33,862m2            

UNStudio team: Ben van Berkel, Hannes Pfau with Erica Fang, Matt Burdalski, Judy Wong, Xiaorong Mo, Rafael Yoon, Zhengda Hou, Chengyang Liu, Cheng Tan, Chris Liu, Albert Yen, Craig Yan, Jon Espinosa Molano, Dongbo Han, Ami Nigam, Joanna Wang, Ray Wong, Haodong Hu, Yu Zhao,  Junya Huang, Andres Monis Rodriguez, Ruijie Xu, Yufeng Tu, Joy Li, and Tony Hu, Antoine Muller, Shail Patel, Wei Huang, Biqin Li, Lawrence Ma, Bin Fu, Pedro Manzano Ruiz, Richard Stewart, Arturo Revilla Perez, Maya Calleja Calvo, Dongjie Qiu, Tsung-Yen Hsieh, Harsh Arora, Zhenyu Yang.

Local Executive Architect: China United Engineering Corporation Limited

Consultants

Structure: Canopy+T3: ARUP

Façade: Canopy: ARUP. Towers: Positive Attitude Group (PAG)

Fire Engineering: Hotel: RJA

MEP: Hotel: Squire Mech. Apartment & Office: MJP M&E Consultant

Kitchen: Hotel: RICCA

Landscape: JTL Studio

Lighting: Brandston Partnership. Inc (BPI)

Renderings © produced by SAN © Hiwell Properties / ICON.

All drawings © UNStudio.

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