CREDAWARD in gold

In mid-September the CREDAWARD presentation in Shanghai took centre stage. It was the 11th time this international design award has been presented, and it honours projects that have impressed the jury in terms of their architectural aesthetics, environmental design, user experience or economic efficiency. This year, the award received 1,042 submissions from 295 institutions. The Hetao Innovation Centre research building in Shenzhen, designed by schneider+schumacher, received the Gold Award in the ‘Comprehensive Commercial Project – Industry’ category. Our partner Nan Wang (photo: ninth from left) was there in person to accept it.

The holistic design approach of the Hetao Innovation Centre typifies a new kind of building for research that provides space not just for laboratories and offices but for exhibition areas, conference rooms and leisure facilities too, all aimed at encouraging interdepartmental contact between scientists. Two rows of glass buildings of various heights stack up to create a green inner courtyard between them. A particularly distinctive feature of the project are the roof terraces on each level, offering views of Hong Kong’s “Wetlands” on the other side of the harbour.