Formerly the site of a golf course, Rouse Hill Town Centre brings 210 shops, 104 residences, 2,800 square meters (30,000 sf) of office space, ten restaurants, a cinema, and multiple educational and civic uses to Rouse Hill, a suburb approximately 40 kilometers (25 mi) northwest of Sydney, Australia. The mixed-use lifestyle center combines the traditional streetscape of a contemporary town with community spaces and the convenience of the latest shopping, dining, and entertainment options. Launched in March 2008 and developed at a cost of AUS $470 million, Rouse Hill Town Centre opened fully leased and has won praise for its extensive environmentally friendly features, creating a ripple effect in the Australian retail industry.
Located among the rowhouses of Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties neighborhood, the eight-unit Thin Flats lives up to its name: each of the two-story units, stacked in pairs, is only 18 feet (5.5 m) wide. Developed by Onion Flats, a family-run Philadelphia-based firm, the new stacked duplexes are a rethinking of the traditional Philadelphia rowhouse—usually a long, narrow, light-deficient typology. The LEED-Platinum project uses light wells to brighten the core of the units, solar panels to provide domestic hot water, green roofing to decrease thermal gain, and rainwater-harvesting cisterns for irrigation of yards and gardens. The Philadelphia Inquirer declared that this blend of environmental and design sensibility “makes Thin Flats easily the most exciting rowhouse project to come out of Philadelphia’s recent construction boom.”
Bethel Commercial Center is a mixed-use transit-oriented commercial center adjacent to a Green Line “L” station in a low-income neighborhood on Chicago’s west side. The 22,000-square-foot (2,044-m2) center includes ground-floor retail space, employment and job-training offices, a bank—the only full-service one in the neighborhood—and a daycare center, allowing residents to drop off and pick up children and to get to and from work, all without the use of a car. The building, which uses approximately 50 percent less energy than conventional construction, achieved a LEED-Gold rating in 2008.
Located in Cornellà de Llobregat, on the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain, Citilab is an adaptive use project that has employed a creative business model to bring new life to a dilapidated industrial area. First conceived in 1997 as part of the local government’s plans to preserve the region’s industrial fabric, Citilab opened in 2007 with a focus on social and digital innovation. The 5,000 square meters (54,000 sf) of space housed within the 110-year-old former textile factory accommodate a conference and training center, a research center, and an incubator for business and social initiatives. The developer, Fundació Privada pel a la foment de la Societat del Coneixement, completed Citilab within budget. The site is located to the west of the city, about nine kilometers (5.5 mi) north of the international airport and the port of Barcelona. It is accessible by subway with the Cornellà station located less than a ten-minute walk or short tram connection from the site.
Greenbelt 5 is the most recent phase in the continuing development of Greenbelt, a flagship lifestyle center in Makati City, Manila’s central business district. Developed and designed by Manila-based Ayala Land, the four-level, 48,680-square-meter (523,987-sf) Greenbelt 5 is sensitive to the traditions of the Philippines, showcasing the country’s best designers and products. In addition to upscale shopping options, the new retail center preserves two cultural landmarks and offers open spaces for public events in the adjoining Greenbelt Park.
Madison at 14th Apartments effectively mitigates the deleterious effects of two holes in downtown Oakland, one physical and the other social. Built on a former surface parking lot, this eight-story infill mid-rise apartment building introduces a striking, contemporary design to the area while plugging a jarring gap in the urban fabric. On a deeper level, this 79-unit apartment building with street-level shops and restaurants addresses the need for affordable housing and designates housing opportunities and services for former foster care youth. With Madison at 14th Apartments, Affordable Housing Associates (AHA), in partnership with First Place for Youth (FPFY), has achieved something laudable and worthy of emulation.
Beijing and Shanghai enjoy tremendous attention for their bold new development, but many of China’s often overlooked second-tier cities are engaging in endeavors that are just as intrepid. Dragon Lake Bridge Park in the city of Bengbu, located in Anhui Province, provides a powerful example of how landscape design can transform a city’s identity as well as the way people connect with one another and with nature. AECOM’s design of the $40 million, 25-hectare (62-ac) park succeeds in enhancing the environment and quality of life for the city as a whole, in promoting tourism and investment, and in creating a contemporary space that celebrates local culture while strengthening public awareness of the natural and built environments.
The Haus für Musik and Musiktheater (MUMUTH; House of Music and Music Drama) is a multipurpose theater in the cultural center of Graz, Austria. Designed by the Amsterdam-based UNStudio, the gently bulging four-story structure is shrouded by a thin stainless-steel mesh and organized around a load-bearing spiral staircase. Developed by state-owned Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft and opened in March 2009, the 6,200-square-meter (67,000-sf) project features a 450-seat theater alongside a restaurant, rehearsal rooms, and workshops for 2,100 students.
Vancouver Convention Centre West eschews the traditional model of convention center design, opting instead to blend into both the built and the natural environments in downtown Vancouver. Simultaneously a building, an urban destination, a park, and an ecosystem, the 111,500-square-meter (1.2 million-sf) convention center sits low on the waterfront, preserving existing vistas from downtown. Occupying a former brownfield site, the C$883 million Vancouver Convention Centre West features 92,900 square meters (1 million sf) of convention space, 8,400 square meters (90,000 sf) of retail space, and 37,200 meters (400,000 sf) of walkways, bikeways, public open space, and plazas. The LEED-Platinum public building is capped by a 2.4-hectare (6-ac) living roof—one of the largest in Canada.
The Ecovillage at Currumbin is an innovative 110-hectare (272 ac), 144-unit residential community that showcases best practices in ecologically sustainable residential development. Conceived and implemented with minimal resources by a small group of individuals who wished to inspire improved practices in land development, the project is being developed on degraded farmland on the exurban fringe of Gold Coast City, a major resort city on Queensland’s Pacific Ocean coast. The project site is seven minutes from the shore. The developer, Landmatters Currumbin Valley Property Ltd., has rehabilitated the site and is protecting its environmental integrity and biodiversity by preserving 50 percent of it as an environmental reserve, netting 80 percent of the property as open space.
