Creative Neighborhood
Ningbo has existed as a trade city on the Silk Road for over two thousand years. It has been the origin of the country’s modern garment industry and is now China’s largest clothing manufacturing base. N+ is a unique urban development designed to function as a design hub for an emerging creative class, responding to a structural shift in the Chinese consumer economy. It is located at the heart of Ningbo’s Eastern New Town, a new central business district designed to accommodate for the city’s rapid expansion. N+ is organized along a series of districts: the Campus, the Hutong, the High Rise and the Cultural District. Within each district, various programmatic modules are strategically interwoven to create spontaneous encounters, intensify interactions and ultimately shape a creative catalyst. The ring, which links everything together, is the key infrastructure element - a multifunctional open platform that helps to activate the districts, continuously changing and reinventing it. N+ establishes a new real estate concept, the Brand Embassy. It serves as a brand’s representational body, enabling a unique form of engagement between brand and consumer. As a typology, the Brand Embassy is structured as a multi-functional space where each brand can calibrate its content and offer according to its particular needs. At its core, N+ functions as an education and R&D platform giving exposure to local design talent and access to global brands and expertise. N+ is an exemplary city in terms of sustainability designed to the criteria of a bespoke environmental index conceived to respond to the needs of creative industries.
PLP Architecture