The requirement was to develop a 745,000sqm flagship mixed-use retail and office development interwoven with a multimodal transit hub in the centre of Chongqing, China.

The heart of the concept is a large external courtyard designed to pull people in from the transportation hubs and local neighbourhoods. The challenge was to make the outdoor area livable in an extremely hot climate. The sustainable design concept is for the courtyard to be cooler than its surroundings by i) a series of chambers below the plaza pulls in hot air, cools it naturally, and then releases it 5-8 degrees cooler, ii) exhaust from the bus hub passes through algae tubes in the plaza which draws out toxins and releases pure oxygen, iii) nano-coating on the main towers further purifies the outdoor air, and iv) the courtyard shaped like a natural bowl traps and retains the cooler clean air.

The garden spaces undulate upwards onto the façades in the form of organic shading fins. The 337m office tower splits into a twin tower in reference to the twin rivers that define the city of Chongqing.