Located in the heart of Shanghai, the Zhangyuan masterplan is an oppurtinty to restore part of Shanghai’s unique cultural heritage of Shikumen architecture, while establishing a new public destination with different spatial and cultural offers. Key to our proposal is to protect both the physical and emotional qualities that make Zhangyuan unique. We aim to restore not only the exterior facades of the remaining Shikumen buildings, but also other key elements of the aged architectural character – its interior finishes, traditional spatial sequencing, and exterior atmosphere.
The restoration is strengthened by removing non historical additions and extensions that detract from the original urban fabric of the site. This gives us the opportunity to repair the street conditions with a responsive masterplan of new symptomatic structures; articulating main entrance gestures into the site. The new buildings add to the programmatic richness of Zhangyuan, providing large scale spaces unavailable in the smaller rooms of the Shikumen. Spaces for exhibition, spaces for performance, spaces for leisure and spaces for thought.
Image © David Chipperfield Architects
Inside Zhangyuan the different plazas and varying street scales are organized and articulated into a more understandable network of nodes with primary and secondary connections. These various urban conditions foster possitibilities for different activites, enriching a community atomsphere within the site. Above ground pedestrian congestion due to the transferring between three high volumes metro stops are mitigated through a new basement connection, offering a more direct transfer. Shops, cafes and restaurants are placed along this connection, catering to the needs of the large pedestrian traffic.
The large-scale newly constructed basement is completely disconnected from the intimate and historic environment of the Zhangyuan streets. Gestural atriums in the new entrance buildings along the perimeter of the site connect the basement to ground floor. Combining these currently three independent metro stops into one new major Zhangyuan metro station, helps define Zhangyuan as a new place Shanghai, a place that is not only limited to its physical boundaries, but can be definitive of an entire area. Source by David Chipperfield Architects.
Model Plan
- Location: Shanghai, China
- Architect: David Chipperfield Architects Shanghai
- Partners: David Chipperfield, Libin Chen
- Project architect: Haishan Li (Competition)
- Competition team: Weili Huang, Xixian Wang, Kejin Kuang, Andrew Irvin, Miguel Bispo, Yiying Guan, Chen Qin
- Collaboration: Traffic consultant Shanghai Municipal Transport & Port Research Center
- Program consultant: Cushman & Wakefield
- Client: Shanghai Jing‘an Real Estate (Group) Co.,Ltd.
- Gross floor area: 63,140 m2
- Competition: 2019
- Images: Courtesy of David Chipperfield Architects
Aerial view of existing condition – Photo © ATCHAIN 
Photo © ATCHAIN Image © David Chipperfield Architects 
Image © David Chipperfield Architects Model Plan 
Site Plan