Culture Wave City / City Balcony

The Culture Wave City is located in the centre of the Central Business Districts of Hangzhou, a city with 5 million inhabitants in south-eastern China. For this site, located directly beside the river, an underground and an overground structure was devised for tourism, retail, gastronomy, culture and leisure. This concept focuses on achieving a close link between river and city, as well as the visually appealing connection of its overground and underground components.

In the area measuring 115 m in width and 800 m in length, the different levels of this facility – from Citizen Center to City Balcony, the waterfront area by the river – are all interconnected by gently inclined ramps, ramp staircases and escalators. This creates a lively wave structure through which the overground and underground components appear to blend seamlessly with one another.

The undulations in the façade on the City Balcony depict an analogy to the hilly landscape around Hangzhou and to the waves on the Qian Tang river. On this surface area, extending across 19,000 m², and rising 75 metres above the river, exhibition and viewing areas have been created. From here, it is possible each year in September to watch a spectacular flooding incident when a tidal bore up to 8 metres in height rolls up the river from the sea.

Before this project, OBERMEYER had won the international town-planning competition for a planning area of 4 km² in the Central Business District of Hangzhou. After this, the planners issued a town planning template and delivered the overall planning for the sub-projects of City Balcony and Culture Wave City.

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Copyright:
All pictures: OEC