At nearly 9 million square feet the complex includes shopping, four residential units and a digital art museum.
The scale of developments using bamboo continues to expand and nowhere is that more evident than in China, where a new urban district has opened in Yibin, in the southern portion of the country in Sichuan Province. Located adjacent to an existing transit hub, the 836,000-square-meter is a car-free district centered on four mixed-use towers arranged around a central park.
Pelli Clarke & Partners designed the masterplan to reference Yibin’s hilly terrain and the nearby Shunan Bamboo Forest – China’s largest and oldest bamboo national park, according to the online design and architecture newsletter Dezeen. Pelli Clark said the development’s green roofs, planted terraces and open-air pedestrian streets pay tribute to the layers of the forest floor.
“The scheme’s massing has been created in response to the neighboring landforms, echoing the virtues of interconnectivity, resilience and adaptability associated with the bamboo plant and its rhizomatic root system,” Pelli Clarke & Partners told Dezeen.
Other features of the development include an elaborate web of canopies on top that weaves through the park, offering shading to pedestrians during hot summer days, a series of undulating trellises on the top of retail pavilions in the park that follow the natural topography and a shopping complex called Yibin Place by MIXC, which combines an indoor mall with a series of free-standing pavilions. The shopping pavilions feature sweeping green roofs, which are meant to signify fallen bamboo leaves.
“Yibin represents a bold vision for a city, one that is deeply connected to its landscape, culture and people,” said David Chen, partner at Pelli Clarke & Partners.
“Our design expresses a living relationship between nature and the built environment, creating a place that can evolve, grow and inspire.”
Image: Zhang Chao
