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2024 UDAD 🏆 Awards

Gold Winner | Wuhan Sanzhen Center | AECOM

Wuhan Sanzhen Center is located in the core area of Wuhan. It was formerly the Hankou Hotel in Wuhan and carries the historical memories of generations of Wuhan people. This “golden treasure land” has been idle for the past two decades. The opening of Sanzhen Center has brought it to life again and become a new landmark of Wuhan in the future. The Sanzhen Center consists of a super high-rise office tower, three residential towers and commercial buildings. It is a model of urban renewal in the center of Wuhan. The entire project investment is 12 billion RMB.

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Gold 🏆 Winner
Urban Design & Architecture Design Awards 2024

Wuhan Sanzhen Center
Commercial Architecture (Under Construction)

Firm
AECOM

Architect/Designer
Paul Lee

Design Team
Paul Lee, Anthony Ruan, Phyllis Liu, Ricky Yang, Fanping Zhao, Shaolin Feng, Julia Wang

Location
Wuhan, China

Country
China

Photographer/Copyright
©Wuhan Sanzhen Center

There are currently a number of large shopping malls transformed from traditional department stores around this project, as well as potential new shopping malls. In view of the commercial scale and land restrictions of this project, the owner hopes to create a characteristic open air, ‘lane-driven’ mall with pleasant scale, rich spaces, strong sense of place, catering and fashion as the main business format, and young people as the main consumer group, so as to differentiate it from the surrounding commercial projects. Therefore, the architects of this project should focus on the creation of attractive commercial space, varied three-dimensional spatial relationships, comfortable indoor and outdoor commercial experiences, and commercial facades that interweave rich and varied styles. By setting up layers of terraces, light connecting bridges, sunken courtyards, performance stages, catering outdoor areas and other places, Wuhan streets and lanes with human touch and traditional fireworks are formed; the facades at different locations within the business should be exquisitely crafted to Traditional and modern elements are organically intertwined, giving people a sense of natural growth, rather than a simple and crude copy of the facade.

The office building of this project is divided into two parts. One part is an ordinary 5A Grade office building, and the other part is a small area (usable area 40~50 square meters) that can be used as a LOFT (floor height 4.5 meters) office building. The exterior facade and core tube need to be economical, and the lobby needs to be integrated with commercial podium, as well as how to combine the ground floor circulation of the office tower with the main entrance of the commercial on the south side.

It is hoped that through ingenious schematic design, various urban functions such as shopping, office, catering, culture, entertainment, residential and transportation are juxtaposed and integrated. The urban space should be transformed to a highly intensive yet organic complex. The surrounding circulation and transportation should be well connected to the internal circulation, creating a highly interactive and attractive commercial ecology. This commercial ecology should enable the various property types enhance each other’s value, and realize the commercial and the social value of the site.