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Named as ‘The Hub’, this addition to Shanghai’s Hongqiao district is well served by high speed rails, metros and domestic flights. This is the first site completed within the Hongqiao Business Centre and sets to attract those who crave for a new kind of urban living from all across the Yangtze River Delta.
The mission of Arup is to materialise its design intent and achieve sustainability.
Office towers, hotels and malls are incorporated into two separate wings of buildings, surrounding a futuristic ‘Starship’, the exhibition centre for art, cultural and business events. Arup’s technical challenge is to make this ‘ship’ appears to be ‘floating’ at the heart of the district through innovative structural designs. Underground is a space of sunken plaza that directly connects to the station concourse nearby. Altogether, the gross floor area will be approximately 379,000m².
‘The Hub’ is designed as the lead for the low carbon business district. Arup has deployed various energy-saving strategies such as the use of solar hot water system, stormwater and greywater recycling systems, and co-generation from central district plant for supply of chilled water and hot water, enabling more than half of the buildings in this development to garner the ‘3-star’ rating in China Green Building standard.
