Next C Water City is a new, fully self-contained sustainable city planned for 500,000 residents. Water was central to the Next C planning concept, supplied by two adjacent rivers and monsoon rains. The city is a system of wetlands, rivers, lakes, and canals, cleansing the water from up-river communities and managing floods during the monsoon season. Working with SOM’s urban design team, Thomas Balsley Associates strategized an open space plan that consisted of seven primary landscape typologies: Central Parks, Civic Squares, Urban Promenades, Water Edge Parks, Canal Parks, Neighborhood Parks, and Wetland Parks filtering and polishing poor quality water from the Chaobai River prior to discharging into the new city’s extensive waterways and eventually into the Yongding River. Each open space typology collectively provides green links throughout the city, and open space programming relates directly to adjacent land uses. Parks along waterways were designed with each season’s environmental extremes in mind, from dry to flooded, creating unique parks for every season.
The Summit
Offering iconic views of the East River and Chrysler Building, residents can find serenity without sacrificing convenience in East Midtown’s The Summit. The tower’s “public face” is set back from the street, where a circular motor court establishes an elevated and elegant tone as residents arrive at the project. The ground level includes a reflecti...
Bamboo Grove Residence
Boasting premium views of the Jialing River, this development is divided into three residential parcels of different sizes and a commercial district with a sales center at its center. Unique topographical conditions for each parcel include, in one instance, a more than 40-meter grade change. The design responds to the natural topography of the site, using runo...
Elan The Presidential
At Elan the Presidential, residents are taken on a journey through the passage of water, cascading through multiple levels within the development before culminating at the central clubhouse and pool. Green spaces complement the water features, bringing nature into the site, with 60% of the development dedicated to open space and outdoor amenities.
Resid...
Ping Yuen Public Housing Renovation
The San Francisco public housing projects known as “pings” are widely viewed as successful. Part of this success is a direct result of their ties with the wider Chinatown community: they are comparatively low-crime, and their tenants are well-organized. Composed of four buildings with 434 units, 2,000+ residents, and five acres of landscape, the Pings are a pa...