China's Diamond Hill Mega-Project Designed by California Firm

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Hollywood, California-based architecture firm 5+design has just announced plans this week for Diamond Hill, a highly cultivated massive mixed-use project located in Shenyang, China whose residential, office and retail spaces will be built atop a fully integrated transportation hub. The hub will connect Shenyang's regional mass transit network with a transportation interchange that includes both a bus depot and a LRT station on the ground level of the project.

This connectivity to the greater city will ensure both convenient access to the project for visitors, and hopes to attract young home owners who rely primarily on public transportation.

Inspired by the mountains of traditional Chinese landscape paintings, Diamond Hills' sophisticated design evolved from the mapping of sunlight onto the site. With analysis of the sunlight's path, 5+design was able to create a layered design that met strict local code requirements regarding sun and shadow in relation to residential buildings.

"We were very happy to be a part of such a large development that's extremely important to the region," said lead designer. In China, there are code ordinances that require each residential building to receive a minimum of two hours of sunshine on the shortest day of the year", said project designer Ramon Hone. "This means that buildings nearby must be designed so as not to block the sun. The difficulty with this project is that there was a 7 floor-to-area ratio, which means you can build 7 times the area of the site, but a height restriction allowed us to only build 100 meters high. So the only way to rationalize the design with the restrictions was to run the sun study. We analyzed the sun's path on the site and we extruded volumes from the site to the maximum height that they could go without breaking the height limit and without infringing on the sun path. The resultant mass was then shaped to into Diamond Hill."

5+design resolved building size requirements that called for 77,000 square meters of residential with 23,000 square meters designated for SOHO lofts that will cater to a younger demographic, 42,000 square meters of office, and 74,000 square meters of retail. By hollowing out the center of the project and leaving a donut-like perimeter of residences, appropriate widths for all three building types were met while concurrently maintaining the sun code requirements.

Diamond Hill's mountainous profile was created by trimming away areas of the project the project that blocked sun access to residences, giving the project a radically different look and feel from all sides.

The four-story mall, topped by a roof garden and large skylights to protect against the Laoning province's severe winters, will be encircled by office and residential buildings whose dramatic profiles echo snow-capped peaks and fertile valleys.

"Due to the severity of the climate where the project is located, Diamond Hill has required a great deal of pre-design analysis which has affected the final form," said 5+design Managing Partner, Michael Ellis. "It's exciting to take a project with so many restrictions and shape it into a cohesive and dynamic place which will become a new destination in Shenyang."
5+design's palette of materials will further enhance the landscape metaphor, with exteriors featuring alternating panels of glass and porcelain to evoke textured layers of sedimentary rock. In the middle of the project, the atrium symbolizes a pristine lake, with skylights of translucent and fritted glass - like a series of mountain lakes - allow light to filter down through all floors.