Ground has broken on the Xinhu Hangzhou Prism, a 50,000 sq m pyramid-shaped mixed-use building in China’s eastern Zhejiang province.
Commissioned by local real estate and holding firm Zhejiang Xinhu Group and designed by Dutch company Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), the development will be the heart of Hangzhou’s new Technology Central Business District (CBD), which will contain offices for Chinese technology firms such as Alibaba Group Holding and NetEase.
Xinhu Hangzhou Prism will contain a hotel, retail space, and a public atrium, with a garden, water features and playgrounds.
OMA describes the project’s design, which is shaped by "two radical oblique cuts through the building envelope".
The firm says the prism is inspired by an ancient Chinese saying, there is "paradise above, and Hangzhou below".
Chris van Duijn, OMA partner, said: "Xinhu Hangzhou Prism will encourage the development of a creative community in the new CBD of Hangzhou.
"The design enables flexible programming and a broad repertoire of communal outdoor spaces, while maintaining a strong visual identity: striking in its form, archetypical yet contemporary."
Xinhu Hangzhou Prism is due to be completed in 2020.
Images courtesy of OMA
