Hongkong Land's Yorkville - The Ring, manifesto of scenario-based design
PH Alpha Design
Retail
/
Future
One of PHA’s latest additions to its portfolio is Hongkong Land’s Yorkville – The Ring in Chongqing. The brand new commercial retail complex encompasses a gross floor area of 420,000 sq. m., of which 170,000 sq. m. is dedicated to the shopping mall, 110,000 sq. m. to the super grade-A office building, and 70,000 sq. m. to the indoor botanical garden.
Yorkville - The Ring, the inaugural project among Hongkong Land’s brand new commercial retail series known as “The Ring”, is designed to be a one-stop destination, providing residents in the Liangjiang New Area with unique premium lifestyle shopping experiences. Located in the core city of Southwestern China, the new development is nested in the centre of Liangjiang New Area of Chongqing with direct connections and convenient access to the extensive rail transit network. The Ring is aspired to become a notable regional landmark, attracting customers and visitors alike from across the city.
The overall master planning of the site maximises visibility and accessibility to the shopfronts, with the retail cluster positioned along the main roads in an L-shape, creating “The Ring”. An enclosed landscaped commercial street takes its form as The Ring extends and embraces the two office towers soaring above and behind. The core of the architectural structure cuts through in an S-curve, setting apart the indoor botanical garden space with the outdoor terraced balconies, which serve as the primary and secondary visual anchors respectively. The balconies, in forms of stepped terraces, featured vertical greenery which echoes the theme of the design concept and strengthens visual connections between the building structure and its surrounding nature. At the heart of The Ring, the indoor botanical garden becomes the key focal point for people flowing through the indoor and outdoor zones.
The biggest challenge for the PHA design team is to realise a seamless integration of urban living with the beauty of nature in order to create an “urban + nature” hybrid form of community. The retail circulation permeates and interplays with that of the indoor botanical garden, successfully merging the multi-dimensional (both horizontally and vertically) spaces of the two, bringing a nature-infused commercial retail experience to the customers.
A 42m-tall dome crowns the top of the large-scale botanical garden, sheltering open-style shopfronts knitted into multi-level terraces of greenery. Through sightline considerations and meticulous spatial planning, the botanical garden landscape visually extends and reaches beyond. Above the main entrance in the southeast, Through the movement of floorslab, the sightlines of the double-storey green retail space and the botanical garden echoes from within, while the vast curtain walls showcase the nature design theme, inviting traffic from the outside.
Another significant feature of the design is the innovative modular design of the facade through parametric modelling. Different materials were used to illustrate the abstract theme inspired by the poetic scenery of “wind”, “woods” and “clouds”. Curvatures of the ceramic tiles mimic the breeze of the wind, while the texture of aluminium panels subtly hints various elements from the mountains. Moreover, the use of LED lighting adds glamour and magnificence, animating and breathing life into the facade.
PHA possesses strong sensitivities and solid capabilities to attend to the growing needs for commercial centres to offer unique and comprehensive retail experience to their diverse customers. Hongkong Land’s Yorkville - The Ring in Chongqing is a true masterpiece as well as a manifesto of PHA’s scenario-based experiential design capabilities and its role as a visionary leader, spearheading the future of urban and commercial developments. The Ring is due to complete for operation by the April of 2021.
Chongqing
China
Hongkong Land Limited
04/2021
443800 sq. m
Dr. Ping Xu
Clive Chow, Ryan Tong, Di Wu, Xiuling Hao
China Constructor Third Engineering Bureau Co.,Ltd
Landscape Designer: ASPECT Studios, Botanical Garden Landscape Designer: Popjoy Design, M&E Engineer: Parsons Brinckerhoff, Facade Engineer: WSP, Lighting Consultant: Brandston Partnership Inc
PH Alpha Design
Curriculum
Founded in 2013, PHA’s headquarters are located in Hong Kong. With the expansion of its business, it also has branches in London, Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing successively.
With innovative design and leading design concepts, PHA has been making constant breakthroughs in architectural design, interior design and comprehensive planning, including shopping centers, commercial retail space, commercial blocks, grade A office building, hotels and private houses, cultural architecture planning and so on. With the design principles of innovation, excellence, practicality, economics and sustainability, PHA always persists that innovation is the priority. The insistence in innovative design ensures the maximum creativity and value of every piece of our design work.
PHA has a wide range of renowned customers both at home and abroad, including Hongkong Land, China Resources Holdings, Longfor Property, Junfa Group, China Vanke, Suning Estate, SCPG and etc.
