The reconversion of an old factory is a kind of Aikido strategy where you use your enemy's energy for your own purposes. Instead of fighting it, you take all the energy and shape it in unexpected and new ways.

With the incredible pace of development that has hit Shanghai in recent years, many industrial compounds formerly located at the edge of the city are today located in areas becoming more and more strategic for the re-evaluation of the city. Historical industrial sites often established strong symbolic relations with the community and at the same time thanks to the particular morphology of these architectures are characterized by a rich architectural environment that creates very convenient opportunities for functional renovation. Located at the heart of the Xuhui district, this large site of 12,780 sqm area with almost 40,000 sqm of construction area were the former premises of the Three Guns textile factories. Having seen is enormous development potential, in 2006 a company was jointly formed by the Xuhui District Government, the Shangtex Holding Co. Ltd. and the Jie Fang Daily News Paper Group specifically with the target to reconvert this textile production factory into a creative fashion design center, able to promote the growing Chinese design potential and at the same time to became a point of attraction for the city able to host a multi-functional living concept, represented today by the successful landmark HighstreetTMLOFT.

The first design task was to plan the relations between the different target functions detailed by the developers; namely : 1/3 of the space for fashion designers showroom; 1/3 for creative loft-studios and office space and the last 1/3 for bar, restaurants inclusive of a large multifunctional hall for fashion related events. The complex functional program was executed by Kokaistudios in a creative way, synthesizing pragmatism and imagination by adopting a technique of carving the existing interior volumes so as to create a series of internal events and point of attraction between different functions and at the same time to set links through the open spaces so to connect the buildings between them. The design strategy adopted by Kokaistudios for the renovation of the external volumes of the building was to work on the peculiar characteristic of each of them in order to re use their original volumetric power but renovating the facades so to give them a new colorful, ironic and light hearted aspect. On the main building we played with its original typical industrial strip windows, transforming them in a huge monolithic glass box patterned with bubbles so to create a huge iconic symbol for the project and at the same time provide the building a new skin that increases its energy efficiency.

On the second main building facing Jiashan road, originally not characterized by strong appearance but now acting as the new entrance for the entire site, we added a new colored skin, composed by a pattern of laminated and back-painted glasses, that embraces three floor of the building creating a strong visual effect, face of the project to the external part of the site. This glass skin turns over the main entrance of the site so to create a long glass canopy that drives the public from the street directly to the main building and serves at the same time as a large protected area where to host outdoor events together with the large square created between the two main buildings of the site. The massive volume of the main building has been carved in a way to create large open spaces connected to each other into an experience journey for the public; from the high lobby located where in the past the largest machines of the factory allow high ceiling spaces to the great public square, core of the commercial area of the project, where the original industrial structure composed by pre-compressed concrete beams create the opportunity to reconvert the space into a vertiginous composition of terraced public balconies and special overhanging volumes where Kokaistudios planned to locate the front shops. The entire project reveals how Kokaistudios carefully approaches each design challenge by researching every time the unique and peculiar characteristics of the project, this time in a re-conversion of an industrial landmark of Shanghai using its volumetric power and its potential of to express through its surfaces a new quality for the city.