Central Business District

Concept

The new Wuchang CBD is located on the banks of the Yangtze River and covers an area of more than 140 hectares. It is organised around two major axes integrating the preserved elements of the heritage: the layout of the existing railway, requalified as a public space, and the avenue of Qinyuan, transformed into a vast park: the “Urban Lounge”. At the crossroads of these two axes is a new architectural landmark, in dialogue with the neighbouring “636” Tower, through a game of crossed skylines.

The public space of the railway enabled the creation of a longitudinal link parallel to the river that runs through the CBD of Wuchang. The “Urban Salon” combines a wide open space, a line of high-rise buildings, and as a link between these two elements, a play of volumes and horizontal connections that builds the scale transition between horizontality and verticality. These horizontal connections, these “synapses”, are deployed throughout the neighbourhood and introduce an intermediate spatial dimension proportionate to the human scale.

The “synapses”, connecting structures integrating all the soft transport links and the shops and services associated with tertiary projects, connect the raised levels and the different podiums to the underground city. They are connected to the transport infrastructure (metro and bus; with their own infrastructures) to guarantee pedestrian continuity and optimal accessibility to every area of the site. They also restore the link between the city and its river.

The layout of the different pathways of the new Wuchang CBD has also been given special attention and treatment to guarantee optimal comfort conditions whatever the season and thus promote soft mobility.

Team

Contracting authority
– Contracting authority:  Wuhan Land Use and Space Planning

Project management
– Architect-Urban planner: Arte Charpentier (Marie-France Bouet, Fernando Castro, Pierre Clément, Jinyi Li, Yang Liu, Laurène Moraglia, Mingding Pan, Qing Qian, Hailin Zhai, Wenyi Zhou)
– Landscaper: Arte Charpentier (Nathalie Leroy)

Design office:
– Transport and mobility: ORYZHOM
– Programming: LDG (Shanghai Longilat Architectural Design and Research)

Specificities
– Address: Wuchang District, 430000, Wuhan, China