Built in 1959, the original West Shanghai Worker’s Cultural Palace occupies a predominate site in the centre of Shanghai. Serving the union workers and local community as a popular cultural activity centre for the last five decades, the Palace could no longer cater for the growing urban population.

The scheme preserves and expands an existing park on the site. The design expands and transforms the park into an inviting 6-hectare public space around a central lake. Four multifunctional towers are placed along the lakeside sitting on an interlinked plinth of cultural functions.

At lower levels, cultural and activity functions include a performance theatre, a training and education center plus art and exhibition spaces, all designed as open and transparent spaces. Public will have easy access to these facilities from the park and the main street. The higher levels in the towers will provide space for multi-functional cultural activities & house commercial offices. The build-ing is also connected at basement levels, with transport links to two new subway stations, retail space and indoor sports facilities, including a sports hall and ice rink. Outdoor sports functions are spread around the park, creating a diverse and active urban public space for the local community.

“This project is all about people”. “At the beginning of the project we spent a lot of time on the existing site observing how the community and public used the park spaces around the lake, it became obvious how loved this amenity within the heart of the city was. At the same time we realised there wasn’t another large scale park in the area – the nearest being 5km away. From this point onwards our focus became how to maximise the amount of open public park from 1 hectare to around 6 hectares on an overall 8 hectare site – whilst creating a new cultural destination of over 80,000m2. Our proposal deals with this whilst pro-posing a series of covered and open spaces at street and park level.