2010 Merit Award for Urban Design
Tianjin Financial City Vision Plan
Tianjin, China
Architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
Tianjin has long been one of Asia’s leading trading cities with a financial heart running along Liberation Road. In the early ‘00s, Tianjin planned to transform the historic, yet deteriorating, neighborhood into a new Financial Street. The historic renovations did not produce the economic lift necessary for the creation of a viable, new center. By 2008, a new high-speed rail link made Tianjin an attractive live/ work alternative to Beijing, and a team was commissioned to develop a program for a new 133-hectare CBD. Planners recognized the need to energize and sustain what would be a vibrant 24-hour downtown community. The new Tianjin CBD plan proposed a rich mix of commercial, residential, and recreational uses to enhance the lives of residents and workers. The Plan also mandated taller, densely-populated buildings to create a compact, walkable downtown, with its riverbanks a “hub” for smaller park streets connecting the Tianjin riverfront, its new CBD, and historic Liberation Road.
