Sparch won the appointment to master plan the site for Shanghai’s new International Cruise Terminal in early 2004 and are now delivering the architecture in two phases. This 800-metre long riverfront site is conveniently located north of the historical ‘Bund’ centre of Shanghai, and will become a new gateway into the metropolis, accommodating three 80,000-tonne cruise ships at any one time, with an expected passenger flow of over 1.5 million people per year. This is in response to numerous cruise companies competing to include Shanghai on their South East Asian routes.
Shanghai municipality has an estimated population of 20 million (registered 16.74 million, floating population of 3.5 million) which is nearly equal to the population of Australia, but compressed within an area of 6,340 sq km.
The Shanghai Authorities have had to address the urgent requirement to open up ‘breathing spaces’, and bravely set down a target to free up 30 percent of the municipality as open space for its citizens to enjoy, ahead of the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, the theme of which is ‘Better City, Better Life’. The Cruise Terminal Site forms part of this vision to create a green corridor along the Huangpu River, eventually extending as far south as the Expo site itself, between the Lu Pu and Nan Pu bridges.
The design of the architecture for the cruise terminal site considered the Herculean scale of the cruise ships that will dock alongside. The total construction area is 260,000 sqm, but the brief required that 50 percent of this be placed underground, including the cruise terminal passenger facilities (planned by Frank Repas Architects), thus freeing up most of the site as a green park terracing down to the water’s edge. Sparch’s challenge was how to deal with the ‘under world’ as well the architecture rising out of it. Their solution was to create ambiguity as to where the ground plane is, by opening up a honeycomb of sunken courtyards. The buildings appear to disappear into these sculpted holes, providing abundant opportunities to explore connections between the ground and ‘lower ground’ levels. The concept also explored the idea of ripples in the landscape being amplified into standing crystal waves that wrap over the buildings. This augmented over time into a second skin that protects the commercial office spaces from their due south orientation, and is populated with semi outdoor balcony spaces overlooking the Huangpu River. The riverfront faces the city, and illuminates at night into a herring bone array of delicate curved masts that tie the pavilion buildings together. An intriguing gap appears in the middle – a glazed table top supports amorphous pods on cables. One, two and four-storey pods contain cafes, bars and restaurants, hovering over a public performance space below. There is a symbiosis between Shanghai’s fun loving desire for diversity, and Sparch’s approach to design, that has made this architecture a reality.
THE PUBLIC REALM
The new International Cruise Terminal will be one of the most eye-catching landmarks along Shanghai’s waterfront. The brief programmed the site with public attractions along its 400-metre long pedestrian street, a sequence of event spaces blossom from sunken courtyards, including a terraced performance theatre, a Media Garden for festival events and a Food Court. The pedestrian street flows from the west, leading to a Crystal Art Gallery at the east end.
The Public Winter Garden forms the centerpiece of the site, its 40-metre tall glass clad portal creates a dramatic stage addressing the public park and the waterfront, where thousands of people can gather to participate in festivals. The portal structure is designed to deploy a 40-metre wide by 30-metre tall gauze screen for digital projections.
The green public park is also a sculpture garden animated with artwork placed in the grass clearings between the trees, and illuminated at night by backlit glass prism skylights rising out of the landscape. Construction continues at pace, the façades of the pavilion buildings are complete. Sparch is now focusing on phase 2, the 100-metre tall tower that forms the second layer of the development along Dong Da Ming Lu.
ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION – RIVER WATER COOLING
All six office pavilions contain ventilated atria, topped with louvered skylights. During mid-season, air circulates through the facades across the office spaces towards the central atrium where it exhausts at the top. Pixelated window openings across the office façades provide local comfort cooling. Large doors open onto generous balconies along the south side, within a double skin façade, overlooking the Huang Pu River. The double skin façade traps UV heat from entering the buildings in the summer, and acts as an insulating blanket during the winter.
Arup Engineers has designed a ‘River Water Cooling System’, a first in Shanghai for a commercial application, which will draw water from the Huang Pu River and combine it, via heat exchangers, with the HVAC system. This system will greatly reduce the energy consumption of the buildings during the summer months.
The canopies hovering above the office pavilion roofs will be carpeted in a ‘Photovoltaic Membrane’, sized to offset the energy requirement of lighting the landscape and public spaces in the evenings.
By maximising on natural daylight and ventilation, and introducing the ‘River Water Cooling System’, combined with photovoltaic membranes on the roofs, in the context of a lush green public parkland, the development is following the philosophy of an ‘Environmentally Sustainable Development’, greatly reducing energy consumption and running costs, and rewarding the client with the credentials of a Green Development for the 21st century.
