CULTURAL RETAIL STREET
Client: Fosun Group
Status: Design Proposal
GFA: 21,000 SQM
Location: Taizhou, China
Scope: Masterplan
Award: 2014 WAF Best Future Masterplan Shortlist
Cultural Retail Street, commissioned by Fosun Shanghai, is part of a larger 800,000 sqm masterplan located in Taizhou, Zhejiang. Through the design strategy of inter-connected streets and squares – 30,000 sqm GFA – that bridges over the river linking two adjacent sites, Fosun hopes to position this development as a regional cultural retail destination.
Instead of designing for a standard retail street corridor prototype as seen in most commercial developments, Cultural retail street takes its inspiration from a renowned song dynasty Chinese painting, also known as the《清明上河图》, 《Along the River During the Qingming Festival》, for its colorful street life and activities.
The concept reinforces a design approach that establishes strong relationship with landscape by organizing 30,000 sqm of retail into 4 distinctive retail zones. A continuous landscape path is woven across the 4 zones spanning both sites of the river, thus connecting the site to its surroundings. Each of the zones have its own distinctive space and character, developed and programmed in conjunction with the client Fosun’s retail team. The end result is a retail street with a series of city scales and spaces – streets, squares, urban plaza, courtyards etc that supports a myriad of activities and spaces that a new city development would benefit from.
