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WOVEN ASSIMILATION
Dissected by roads and disjointed by urban planning, Beijing city centre exists as an amalgamation of cultural, social, economic, political and formal diversity. A point where this is strongly evident is in the city’s retail quarter, which through the rapid urbanisation of the city is situated in a context of historical and economic diversity yet fails to find synergy between the two – either functionally or formally.
The contrasting states of context, both tangible and intangible, in this retail district represent an opportunity to interject into the development process with a formal proposition that weaves together the fabric of the the two states in function, form and social parameters. The formal language of weaving is used to manipulate connectivity and density, with the intention to encourage interaction between the currently secular identities and blur the edge conditions into a contextually informed intermediary environment. External market spaces, shared public areas and personal interaction will become a strong component of a mixed use development that assimilates to the conditions of each existing environment, centred around the idea of manipulated circulatory patterns that enable new interaction to promote mutual economic and social enhancement for the adjacent residential and commercial districts.
Movement and flows will become crucial to the manipulation and mutation of form, with a direct informing relationship between programme, occupants and architectural response. The adaptability of the weaving system will be exploited in a singular 3-Dimensional proposition that modulates formal and atmospheric quality in direct response to each programmatic and social condition. The result is a weaving low-rise residential environment that leads seamlessly into a high-rise commercial development, through a new intermediary space that preserves character and atmospheric qualities inherent to each.
The implementation of a new formal architectural language will negate the inherent difficulties of converging the two contrasting architectural states as they exist and instead provide a suitable template, adaptable to each need, for social cohesion. The outcome is intended to serve as a model that can conceivably be applied across Beijing city to a variety of propositions and purposes, and will be measured in success by the manner in which it can encourage the integration of citizens, spaces, commerce and living into one environment.
