Xintiandi Plaza
Xintiandi Plaza
The redevelopment of Shiu On Land’s Xintiandi Plaza involves the adaptive reuse of a 1990s-era shopping mall with the goal of creating a gateway to connect Shanghai’s neighbouring Xintiandi development – the famous 19th century shikumen housing complex – to the nearby high-end fashion street of Huai Hai Lu.
In addition to this connective role, designers conceived the renovated mall as a landmark in its own right, reimagining it as a lifestyle destination for Shanghai’s young professionals with a mandate to provide an open, welcoming and inclusive community centre for the broader public.
The building employs two main conceptual approaches. First, it deliberately embraces the contrasting elements of the local neighbourhood – both its modern commercial vitality and its historical Shikumen past – by incorporating them into vertically stacked themes, creating a landscape of changing experiences.
Second, the building seeks to blur the boundaries between inside and outside space by relinquishing the original mall’s rectilinear design and importing a range of outdoor elements to the inside – including the architecture envelope, the flooring, and the planting. Areas for socialising are also placed at key positions within the building envelope while also being visible from the street, allowing passersby a glimpse at the activities taking place within.
In doing so, the design echoes the outdoor perspective of Xintiandi, “bringing the inside out and the outside in,” as one juror put it.
In addition, elements of outdoor street life are mixed with lifestyle retail features throughout the building. Resembling a leisurely stroll outside, visitors are encouraged to wander through and explore different levels of the building, with retail spaces adopting open layouts punctuated by small kiosks.
The sunken plaza located towards the Huai Hai Road end connects the street level to the basement metro entry, while stacked balconies connect the ground level all the way to the roof garden. All platforms, terraces, and outdoor spaces are planted with lush vegetation so as to create a new green urban landscape.
According to one juror, “the diffusion of spaces has created a pleasant sense of playfulness with the façade terraces and lush green landscaping, including the introduction of a grand skylight that allows sunlight to penetrate through all levels.”
From a sustainability perspective, Shui On’s original Xintiandi complex was groundbreaking in the way it embraced the project’s historical legacy to enhance user experience. Xintiandi Plaza carries on this theme by opting to remodel rather than demolish, as well as via constant references to its neighbour’s Shikumen brick in its use of locally-produced, high-quality terracotta tiles.
These complement the façade treatment in a regenerative way, while also retaining and drawing on the skills of local artisans. At the same time, the tiles metallic finish complement the vibe from nearby Huai Hai Road, which is famous for its high-end luxury brands and stores.
Despite the fact that local geographical and historical characteristics make the Plaza a one-off, its design philosophy is quite replicable and could be easily deployed by other remodeling projects that need to bridge a gap between different communities or to integrate distinct social, cultural and physical characteristics of a local neighbourhood.