The companyˇ¦s design philosophy is open and continually developing. Projects commence with a methodology of focusing each architectural project on the understanding and development of its urban design role.
Laguarda Lowˇ¦s focus is different with every commission. The firm believes that each project is
complex and unique, and should generate individual responses. An unusual factor that differentiates us from other firms is that almost all of their global work is executed by the same team of design architects here in Dallas. Laguarda Low believe this gives them an enormous advantage over local or regional firms that work only in specific places, or divide international work between various, disconnected offices.
Their team has accumulated a wealth of experience and a competitive edge by maintaining a group of talented people who have collaborated together in the same place for some time, giving them the congruence of a shared experience over a broad range of sites, strategies and design problems.
Consciously seeking to bring the process of design to its most pure and essential methodology,
Laguarda Low believes it is important to fully separate themselves from the bureaucratic tendencies of the profession: excessive and dominant management, large and inefficient meetings, and all the other obstacles that bureaucracy can create, which they say can interrupt the development and efficient production of strong and powerful design ideas. By maintaining a consistent size and personnel in the firm, controlling overhead, and clarifying management, the partners are able to focus on design and dedicate their time to client expectations.
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Pangyo New Town, Korea.
This project for the commercial heart of the new city of Pangyo has two goals: to provide a world class entertainment and retail district for the booming urban area, and to create a memorable visual identity for the city. The dramatic structure of the Pangyo Dome proposes an unashamedly new, modern heart for the city. The Dome is a physically interlocking device, a series of public uses woven into a web that formally integrates the surrounding building units into a structural whole. Included are seven levels of retail and entertainment podium, as well as a series of semi-independent office buildings of varying heights, and a hotel and service apartments.
The ground plane of the Dome is a designed as a continuous plaza garden, laid out in the form of a distinct cruciform that links all areas of the project. Here, the green corridors proposed by the city are brought through the project together with a series of water forms, bridges, gardens, and plazas. A series of vast parks link together the entire development, containing relaxing and refreshing green areas for entertainment and amenities.
The formal strength implied by the scale and singular visual power of the unifying dome is complemented by the soft forms of the buildings, expressed both in shape and materiality. The exoskeletal roof is punctuated by voids, carved and formed as if by a river, creating eroded shapes. The idea of these voids symbolically smoothed over time by constant flow express the public in-and-out flow of the new civic centre.
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Located at the intersection of Dongcheng Central Road and Sanhuan Road, the site for this project is strategically situated as an important portal for the city of Dong Guan. The grand office tower marks this spot, not only giving the tenants of the building high visibility, but also
functioning as an orientation point for this whole part of the urban landscape, and an image for this entrance to the city.
The project site is divided into two distinct parcels by a tree-lined boulevard, the primary access to the overall development. The fins of the 5 residential blocks are positioned as the eastern component of the project. Although buffered from the commercial site by this boulevard, the residential blocks are nonetheless fully integrated into the overall scheme, visually functioning as radiating spines. As a sequence of elements they give order to the entries to the commercial block, visually structuring the rhythm of motion along the urban boulevard, giving it both scale and pattern.
The western parcel, closer to the noise and importance of major city thoroughfares, is the site of commercial, and office buildings. Pinning the corner of the site, the tower stands with its feet in an urban garden and tangential to the dynamic low form of the retail centre.
This centre, both physically and functionally the meeting point of the mixed-use scheme, rises up like a hinge to include service apartments ˇV those most closely linked to the commercial and business interests of the western site.
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Set along the Silk Road on the sea, the five towers of the Nansha Business Centre are composed of layered, slanting planes, which form the graceful profile of an opened fan against the Guangzhou skyline.A strong series of vertical elements cutting the sky, this project brings together the dynamic formal qualities of LaguardaLowˇ¦s work, together with clear and logical plan organization.
Inspired by the local fan-manufacturing history of early twentieth century Guangzhou, the five towers of the business centre create a single monumental form out of a series of independent structural elements. Narrowing and curving in plan as well as in section, the tower forms are individually distinctive, yet formally cohesive. The overall building provides a signature skyline in the open city, both identifiableand yet continuous.
The curved plan of the towers is brought together with a conference centre, creating an office/conference complex with a more varied set of opportunities for business clients. Returning to Chinese tradition for the formal inspiration, the plan of the conference centre is figured as a second curved element, in counterpoint to the first, identified in plan as a pair of swimming carp, with their traditional symbolic orders of wealth, perseverance, and fortitude.
Both visually and experientially, the curved wall of the towers protectsthe low-slung conference centre from street traffic. Crosscurrents of public and private circulation are incorporated into the lower level of buildings, minimizing visual clutter and creating smooth traffic flow.
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The master plan for this textile and fashion distribution centre in Wuxi, proposes a trade hub for the textile industry that includes a series of innovations and a new standard of design for such
distribution centres. Traditionally, fabric is sold in bulk at the textile markets in a series of stalls lined-up throughout large warehouse structures, while finished clothing is sold in bulk to distributors at fashion marts housed in similar structures.
While providing all of the infrastructure and services that the trade district needs, first the design of the master-plan itself envisions much more than the typical trade hub. Beyond the two warehouse types, the master-plan proposes hotels, residential and office towers, retail space, and an exhibition centre, projecting the future growth of the area into a vibrant wholesale, retail, business and even a residential district.
The master plan is divided into five phases. The first phase is the construction of a wholesale textile market on Tai Hu Road. Even standing alone, the more detailed design of this wholesale textile market is already innovative in several ways. First the large scale of the market is broken down though the creation of a sequence in the route through the spaces, and the creation of ˇĄplazasˇ¦ or breaks in the street-like pattern of the sequence. These ˇĄplazasˇ¦ create
moments of difference which not only improve the experiential quality of the market, but are memorable and identifiable sites which aid in the navigation of the space. The problem of navigation through the markets is further identified and managed through the separation and organization of service, pedestrian, and bicycle circulation. The clerestory skylights, visible from above with their bright primary coloured structure, not only provide day-lighting to the space, but through their colour coding, assist in the navigation and identification of different areas of the project.
The second and third phases will expand this textile market and add the first two fashion mart buildings. Like the textile buildings, the fashion market buildings too are innovative solutions to a given typology. With carefully designed roof structure and detail, daylight is allowed to enter; creating interior spaces are light and roomy.
The skin of the fashion warehouse building takes on the conceit of a fabric structure, with stencilled patterns etched into the finished wall surface. All of these design improvements add value to the project without increasing its cost beyond that of a typical textile market.
The first three phases will allow the district to naturally develop and grow as a textile industry centre. After their completion the site south of Tai Hu Road will be developed as a mixed-use complex. The hotel, exhibition centre, retail, office, and residential complex will build on the early trade foundation, eventually becoming the vibrant heart of the entire district when the remaining four fashion mart buildings and large textile market are added in the fourth and fifth phases.
China: Shupai Koo
Laguarda.Low Architects
RM501 Tower15 Jienwai Soho No.39
East Third Ring Road, Chaoyang District
Beijing, 100022 China
Tel: +86 10 58691560
Email: shupai.koo@laguardalow.com
U.S.A: John Low
Laguarda.Low Architects LLC
4333 North Central Expressway
Dallas, TEXAS 75205 U.S.A.
Tel: +1 214 752 9008
Fax: +1 469 916 4120
Email: john.low@laguardalow.com