Lane 189

Shanghai, China
Photo © Hufton+Crow
Photo © Eric Jap
Photo © Hufton+Crow
Photo © Hufton+Crow
Photo © Hufton+Crow
Photo © Hufton+Crow
Photo © Hufton+Crow
Photo © Hufton+Crow
Drawing © UNStudio
Drawing © UNStudio
Drawing © UNStudio
Drawing © UNStudio
Drawing © UNStudio
Drawing © UNStudio
Architects
UNStudio
Year
2016
Client
CITIC Capital
Team
Ben van Berkel, Hannes Pfau, Severin Ignaz Tuerk, Kyle Ching-Yu Chou, Alexander Schramm, Adriana Rodriguez Ossio, Caroline Filice Smith, Lukas Allner, Tamim Salah EI Negm, Yuan Duran Zhai, Justin Tao Cheng, Cristina Gimenez, Bloom Shao Kai Hou, Eric Zhu, Yuwei Wang, Mingxuan Xie, Edwin Hang Jiang, Joerg Lonkwitz, Fabian Alejandr Mazzola, Deepak Jawahar, Juergen Heinzel, Praneet Verma, Gordana Jakimovska, Huaiming Liao, Gang Liu, Weihong Dong
Facade
Inhabit
Lighting
Ag LICHT, LEOX Design
Landscape
TJAD

Lane 189, located in the Putuo district in central Shanghai - opposite Chang Shou Park and close to the Jade Buddha Temple - is designed to provide a lifestyle destination for Shanghai’s young professionals. Lane189 combines retail, restaurant and office spaces in an organisation that rearranges the typical mall into a vertical city centre and provides opportunities for shopping, strolling, eating, gathering and relaxing.

The design incorporates elements of ‘old Shanghai’ through geometry, pattern and materialisation and combines these with a contemporary urban experience, thereby creating a destination with a distinctly Shanghai feel.

The existing qualities of the immediate urban surroundings, which include small-scale restaurants and boutique stores, are reflected in the building where they are stacked vertically to populate the envelope with programmatic destinations that can be seen from street level.

Inside, elements of street life are mixed with lifestyle retail features and are distributed throughout the building. The organisation of the building encourages the visitor to stroll through and explore the different levels of the complex, where retail spaces follow an open layout and are punctuated with small kiosks.

Programmed Facade
The facade is designed to support the overall design concept of a programmed facade and to create depth for the building envelope. The use of multi-layered components enables a variety of views towards the surroundings, whilst simultaneously providing functional transparency in specifically located areas.

Based on a hexagonal grid, the facade components follow the articulated geometry of the building and provide constantly changing perspectives.

A gradient transition from bigger to smaller facade components regulates the exposure of the inside to the outside and enhances the main entrance of the building. The facade therefore becomes an integrated active layer that can be programmed as display windows, vista points or balconies.

On the lower facade a hexagonal grid consists of diamond shaped panels that are tied between pins forming a tensioned cladding system. Here the arrangement of the components can change across the facade from single layer to triple layer, up to a depth of 400mm. Constructed from different materials and lit by RGB LEDs these panels create different visual effects: transparent or opaque, colourful or monochrome, reflective or matt.

Urban eyes
Large double-height facade openings present the interior programme to the outside world. These ‘urban eyes’ simultaneously create large display platforms for products whilst providing balconies with views to the surroundings.

Interior
The interior of Lane 189 derives its character from a central void which cuts through the volume from base to top and is punctuated by a series of rounded plateaus. When seen from below the rounded plateaus resemble a cohesive layered organic structure, however when looking down from above the programmes of the plateaus are revealed.

These smaller pockets, positioned in a rotational manner, create intimate plazas and are visually connected to the urban eyes of the facade.

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