Tall & Urban News

Architecture firm MVRDV has won a competition to design a mixed-use residential and commercial complex on the edge of the Jiangbei New Area’s Financial District in Nanjing. The Oasis Towers are two 150-meter-tall towers with a green landscape nestled between them.   

The project’s two L-shaped towers, each 40 stories in height, face each other from the north and south corners, while the 4-story podium forms a perimeter that almost encloses the entire site. This perimeter building bridges over pedestrian access routes and the street between the two plots, creating a clear separation between the surrounding neighborhood and the oasis at the center of the design. The project spans two adjacent blocks on the edge of the Jiangbei Financial District masterplan.

Peppered with trees and other greenery, it forms a green landscape on the building’s cascading terraces, and a lush environment for shopping in the building’s commercial floors at the ground level up to the third floor. This park-like space has a number of functions: it provides cooling and biodiversity, the canopy offers privacy by shielding the residents of the upper floors from the shoppers below, and it creates a walkable environment that connects the two plots across the central road. At the very center of the public space, the landscape steps down below ground level to connect beneath the road, providing a convenient crossing point and allowing access to the metro station beneath the site.

MVRDV is now working with the client in the design development phase.

For more on this story go to MVRDV.nl/news