Four residential towers standing at a height of around 100 m apiece offer 100,000 m² of residential space and around 500 residential units on 30 storeys. The project was developed in the context of an integral sustainability concept and fulfils the highest standards when it comes to proximity to nature (naturalness), comfort and design.
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Yancheng ‘Vertical Forest’
Sustainable Comfort, Prefabricated Complex Forms and a House You Can’t See for the Trees
Yancheng ‘Vertical Forest’
Yancheng lies around 300 km northwest of Shanghai. We have developed a completely new residential area in a growth zone of this prosperous city of 1.7 million inhabitants. The residential complex is state of the art throughout, and aims to be a role model for urban development. In cooperation with our partner CEG Schwarzwald, our concept responds to the specific requirements of the Chinese market. We have created space for a modern lifestyle, which combines the highest levels of comfort with a healthy environment and close proximity to nature. The private residential worlds are embedded within a public area, which serves as a centre for art and culture, and itself aims to become an urban landmark. The future residents of the complex thus become a part of their very own, modern life philosophy.
Where City Living Meets Nature's Embrace
The residential towers rise up from a public area that is spatially intertwined with a park. A so-called Culture Hub offers flexible spaces for events, concerts and exhibitions. Community facilities such as preschools and commercial usage in the form of smaller shops are also accommodated here. The rear side, which is more private and more closely connected to nature, houses the fitness and wellness area, which is exclusively available to residents.
As a statement of the life philosophy of this complex we have brought the trees as close as possible to the residents. They grow from the park surrounding the complex, up the ramps leading to the Culture Hub, and continue upwards to populate the terraces of the individual storeys, enveloping the towers in a green sheath. We call it the Urban Forest.
Innovative Building Concept
The architectural concept behind the residential towers was developed by rotating an iconographic storey element. This enabled us to formulate a sophisticated architectural design while attaining an around 80% degree of prefabrication. This high level of prefabrication in the shell structure and characteristic balustrade elements means that construction time can be decreased by 50%. Only the slab edge areas at the transition to the balustrades must be constructed on site. Moreover, the advanced prefabrication technology ensures a much higher quality of build and reduces the environmental burden during the construction phase. The elements are supplied with a ready-installed infrastructure and can be assembled on site in a highly efficient and emission-free way thanks to an innovative connector technology.
Sustainability does not mean austerity for us. Quite the reverse: the individual with all his/her needs and desires for comfort remains at the very centre of things. We have developed a targeted, multistage sustainability concept for this purpose. The architecture is formulated in such a way that it effectively optimises the passive energy balance of the complex. In particular the design and greening of the building shell optimises energy requirements and quality of life in the interior. The latest building technology is connected with the façade technology via intelligent control systems that take weather conditions, social behaviour and individual resident requirements into account with the goal of optimising and reducing energy usage.
An essential part of modern life philosophy lies in designing the apartments. The building typology offers attractive creative opportunities for apartments of 160 m² to 400 m². The complex, developed for the upper stratum of society, is connected to the city’s transport infrastructure via an underground carpark. Private transport should not disturb the Urban Forest, so vehicles are conducted underground at the area entrance. Each tower has its own underground carpark lobby, which transforms both arrival and departure into a representative moment.
Facts & Figures
Team
- Daniel Cano
- Gunter Fleitz
- Paula González
- Peter Ippolito
- Kamil Kaczmarek
- Adalbert Kapp
- Luca Leardini
- Jörg Lonkwitz
- Robert Pruim
- Ziheng Wu
Partner
- Drees & Sommer AG
- Lifestylegreen
- Munitec GmbH
Awards & Publications
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