Asia Special Issue of Urban Land

SOUTH KOREA

HERITAGE AT JEONJU HANOK VILLAGE

CHINA

INTERCONTINENTAL SHANGHAI WONDERLAND HOTEL

THAILAND

DEALING WITH BANGKOK’S CLIMATE CHALLENGE

INTERVIEW

CHAIRMAN NICHOLAS BROOKE

ulx

RON

Tall and Taller

NYREN

Ten buildings ranging from 18 to 64 storeys model innovative ways to reach the sky.

High-rises can dominate the streetscape, but they can defer to it at the same time, making generous room at ground level for green spaces, mixing a variety of uses to encourage 24/7 activity, offering porous lobbies and pedestrian passageways to facilitate circulation through a city, and using curves, angles, setbacks, openings, and

fins to break up their massive size and modulate their monolithic appearance.

The following 10 projects in the Asia Pacific region—all completed during the past five years—include a hotel in a former quarry pit; towers that offer pedestrian-friendly access to shops, cafés, and restaurants at their bases; skyscrapers that offer

public amenities at their upper levels; a beauty company headquarters that features an art collection open to the public; and high-rises that incorporate trees and other vegetation at their bases, in terraces, on their roofs, or all three.

RON NYREN is a freelance architecture and urban design writer based in the San Francisco Bay area.

1. 480 Queen Street

BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA

On a site that slopes down from historic St. John’s Cathedral to the Brisbane River, a former Australian Red Cross building and a nightclub were demolished for a development scheme that fell through after the 2008 recession. The site remained vacant until acquired by the local office of Grocon, which built a 31-storey tower that preserves views from the cathedral to the river and provides publicly accessible open space by means of a park at the fourth level and a through-block pedestrian path. Large-scale rainforest-themed murals surround the escalator leading from Queen Street up to the park, which is at the same height as the cathedral grounds across the street, preserving views to the river.

The building includes five levels of retail space and servicing areas, as well as a 10-storey volume and a 19-storey volume. Parking for 270 vehicles is tucked into the basement. Trees grow on the building’s rooftop gathering space. The local offices of Dexus Wholesale Property Fund and Dexus Property Group own the building, which was designed by the local office of BVN and completed in 2016.

CHRISTOPHER FREDERICK JONES

SCOTT BURROWS

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THE AMBITIOUS DEVELOPMENT PLAN PROMISES GREAT REWARDS, BUT FACES MULTIPLE CHALLENGES IN INTEGRATING DIVERSE COMMUNITIES.

The economic development of China’s Greater Bay Area (GBA) is being driven by ambitious infrastructure projects, but the less tangible side of integrating the region’s cities offers the greatest challenge.

In February, China released its outline development plan for the GBA, which consists of nine cities in the southern province of Guangdong—Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, and Zhaoqing—and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

“We are all very committed to building a bay area economy which is open, international, which will

consist of an international innovation and technology hub, which has the personal support of President Xi Jinping,” said Carrie Lam, Hong Kong chief executive, introducing the plan to the public.

China’s government wants to integrate these cities, clustered around the Pearl River Delta, into a single bay area, similar to areas encompassing New York City, Tokyo, and San Francisco, as a focus for innovation and economic growth. The plan is also explicitly intended to bring Hong Kong and Macau— which each have tax and legal systems that differ from each other and from that of Mainland China— further into the orbit of the mainland.

Southern China’s GreaterBayArea

MARK COOPER

Shenzhen.

BING FENG WU_ISTOCK

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THAIS HAVE LONG FOCUSED ON THE NEED FOR WATER MANAGEMENT—BUT MANY ARE CALLING FOR MORE ACTION.

BangkokRON GLUCKMAN The Sinking City Faces Severe Climate Challenges

©ISTOCK

Sceptics may question climate change, but in Bangkok, the impacts are already being felt—and are undeniable. Rainy season used to be as predictable as the bountiful rice crop, showering Thai fields like clockwork from mid-April into October, when the weather abruptly flips and it becomes bone-dry for six months. In recent years, though, rain has fallen unpredictably, causing flooding, damaging agriculture, destroying livelihoods, and threatening millions of people.

Meanwhile, temperatures are on the rise, and rapid urbanisation—combined with severe land subsidence—has put Bangkok on the watch list of the most vulnerable cities in Southeast Asia. However, events have focused attention, and some action, on the urgency of the problems. After a devastating

flood early this decade, Bangkok launched numerous government-backed plans to address ecological issues and enlisted an array of international partners. Bangkok joined the 100 Resilient Cities project, which was established and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and helps cities around the globe prepare for the myriad ecological and economic challenges of the 21st century.

“The government accepts that climate change is real,” says Supachai Tantikom, the chief resilience officer in Bangkok who was hired by the 100 Resilient Cities project as part of its standard agreement with cities in the project. In 2012, the government adopted a master plan that targets the reduction of carbon, traffic, and air pollution and the increasing of greenery.

The Sinking City Bangkok might seem a surprising addition to the climate change crisis list. Media coverage more often focuses on the impact of rising sea levels and surging tides on coastal residents, or on vulnerable low-lying islands. In Thailand, however, the effects of climate change are felt inland, along rivers and deltas, mainly in the crucial Chao Phraya River region. And Bangkok is particularly vulnerable, since this city of canals—called the Venice of Asia—is barely above sea level. Or it was. By some measures, it already has slipped below sea level; it is among the world’s fastest-sinking cities.

The capital of Thailand is sinking by up to two centimetres (0.8 in) each year, threatening this city of nearly 10 million. The Chao Phraya River has become prone

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ULI ASIA PACIFIC CHAIRMAN NICHOLAS BROOKE

UL Interview

Reflections on a storied, globe-spanning career—and thoughts on today’s Hong Kong.

COLIN GALLOWAY

ULI Asia Pacific Chairman and Global Trustee Nicholas Brooke is chairman of Hong Kong–based real estate consultancy Professional Property Services Group. His 50-plus-year career in real estate has also seen him juggle a host of roles in both the public sector and the private sector. Apart from an ongoing position as principal adviser to the APEC Business Advisory Council, he has served as chairman of the Hong Kong Harbourfront Commission and Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks, as well as president of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Before arriving in Hong Kong some 40 years ago, he worked in the Middle East as an adviser to the ruling families of Dubai, Bahrain, and Abu Dhabi, where he helped set up the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), today one of the world’s biggest sovereign wealth funds.

Senior executives in almost any field tend to follow a fairly well-trodden career path, but your background is less conventional. How did you get to where you are today? I was actually brought up in Brazil. My father worked there for ICI, so my first 14 years were spent in Sao Paulo, where I went to school and was taught in Portuguese. Then we moved back to Yorkshire in the U.K., and I became heavily involved with the local estate, helping them manage their affairs, so I decided to pursue agriculture. I became a land

agent, and the first three to four years of my career I spent managing farms and estates for the crown and church. From there, I moved over to the urban side and started to get involved in development and valuations of urban property.

Soon after that, the company I was working for had this big event and called me down to the head office in London. And as I walked into reception, there stood this gentleman, six feet three inches [1.9 m] tall in a flowing white gown and a beard—obviously an Arab. This was in the late ’60s. It was early days, and Arabs hadn’t been seen in

London in any numbers. But as you do when you’re a keen young man, I asked: “Sir, can I help you?” And it turned out he was one of the sons of the ruler of Dubai. It was just at the time the oil money was starting to flow, so in fact he’d been sent off by his father to start spending some of that money. What he really wanted was to buy a house in London. So I helped him buy his house, and after that he just carried on; we bought him hotels, office buildings, and so on.

Now, this was in the days of cash, and of course at the time the Middle East had no track record in the United

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MARK COOPER

Inter- Continental Shanghai Wonderland

A luxury hotel in an abandoned quarry creates a splash.

MARK COOPER is a freelance real estate journalist based in Hong Kong.

ATKINS

The InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland Hotel in China’s Songjiang District, some 40 kilometres (25 mi) from Shanghai, appears modest when approached from ground level because only two storeys project above ground and green roofs help them blend into the surrounding greenery. But when guests step inside the hotel—adapted from an abandoned quarry—they see the dramatic construction, attached to the rock like a hanging garden.

Approach from the air, on the other hand, and the mouth of the quarry and its lake are revealed as well as a further 14 floors of the hotel, clinging to the quarry wall. An additional two floors are below ground, with underwater guest rooms and a restaurant.

More than a decade in the planning and construction, the 386-room hotel was designed by British architects Atkins in partnership with Jade+QA on behalf of Shimao Property Group, a Chinese developer founded by Hui Wing Mau, one of the first people to develop a privately owned hotel in China.

Hui told a press conference at the opening of the hotel in November that he came up with the idea of building a hotel in a quarry in 2006; work started on the US$300 million project in 2009.

Known as the cradle of Shanghai, Songjiang has a history stretching back nearly 6,000 years and has been selected for tourism development. Along the district’s northern edge are the “Nine Mountains” thought to form the spine of a large green dragon. New developments in the area must demonstrate a strong commitment to environmental protection, regeneration, and preserving the landscape, hence the restrictions on above-ground construction.

The former stone quarry had been dug to nearly 100 metres (328 ft) and then abandoned to the elements; the slow accumulation of rainwater created a pool at the bottom of the pit. Eric Seymour, senior design director at Atkins, says, “The design was inspired by the Hanging Monastery of Hengshan Mountain, which was

constructed during the Wei period more than 1,400 years ago. It is conceived as a modern resort that draws heavily upon its Taoist roots offering a place of sanctuary from hectic city life.”

In Songjiang, engineers faced a number of challenges presented by the unique nature of the project. For example, when concrete was sent down into the quarry via standard construction chutes, the materials separated and were unusable. The team ended up patenting more than 41 engineering methods.

The hotel has a number of unique design features, including a “glass waterfall” that cascades from ground level down the side of the quarry wall, encasing the lifts and giving access to guest rooms. At night, the glass-encased elevators are illuminated to resemble water sparkling down to the pool’s surface. The glass “waterfall” mirrors the water falling down the opposite side of the quarry.

A floating bridge allows visitors to walk across the water’s surface looking skyward to appreciate the colossal scale of the natural cliff walls and the hotel’s design. The shape of the hotel, viewed from above, resembles the Chinese yin and yang symbol, which denotes harmony in contrast.

The positioning of the hotel within the quarry was chosen to provide the most sunlight for guest rooms and for solar panels. The hotel also uses the natural airshaft between its structure and the cliff wall for insulation and cooling.

The design won multiple awards, including “Best Chinese Futura Projects” award at the MIPIM Asia Awards 2011, “Best Hotel Architecture China,” “Best Hotel Architecture Asia Pacific,” and “Best International Hotel Architecture” at the International Hotel Awards 2013. It was nominated as one of the architectural wonders of the world by the National Geographic Channel’s MegaStructures series.

Seymour notes, “The hotel rejuvenates the quarry and brings man and environment together in a highly sustainable relationship. What was once a deep scar left on the landscape is now transformed.”UL

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