Lacy Carving Box

Changsha is the capital city of Hunan, in southcentral China, located on the lower reaches of Xiang River, a branch of the Yangtze River. From very ancient time Changsha was a highly populated major commercial hub. Under the Qing dynasty, from 1664, it was the capital of Hunan province, and a major rice market. It was a scene of major battles in the Sino- Japanese War of 1937–45 and was significantly destroyed. Rebuilt since 1949, the city is now a major interior port and a commercial and industrial center under fast-growing heavy development. Its national industrialtechnological park also attracts a huge amount of foreign investment. All this caused the necessity of the construction of residential and office buildings. Milan-based RR C Studio‘s latest undertaking, the Xiang River Tower, which will be an office and residential project in Changsha. Located near the Xiang River in a prime area of the city’s downtown, the tower will dominate the city’s horizon and bear a strong presence on the skyline.

The east riverbank of the Xiang River has from some time undergone a remarkable transformation with the establishment of several buildings with different functional purpose, which have deeply modified its structure. The west riverbank, featuring a front towards the water destined to an urban linear park, on the contrary, has not yet had a great expansion. The development of the plot, 23.000 sqm approximately, located at the edge of the second bridge on the Xiang River, at the crossing between two wide arterial roads, Yuelu Avenue and Xiangyue Road, has a primary role for the urban growth of the west border. Within this context the Xiang River Tower complex is proposed as a new landmark, representative cornerstone of the future settlement.

The tower comes from the idea of Chinese boxes contained in a single bigger box: each of them, stacked on top of another, include several programs. The decorated skin of the cladding hides within itself a building anchored to its central structural core and its different “boxes” containing various functions. The reference from which the concept has been generated is the one of the Chinese boxes, i.e. the skin is a bigger container within which the other boxes are included overlapping, creating an inner volumetry, variable and complex. On a urban level the project is set as a broad slab filled with different elements which create diverse landscapes and several places around the building. These spaces define the relationship interface of the complex with the elements composing the city such as the roads, the river and the green areas.

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Materials provided by RRC Studio