Located along the Xuhui District riverside, the Shanghai DreamCenter revitalizes an industrial site to form an integrated cultural and lifestyle neighborhood focused on the creative, digital media, technology, and cultural industries.
The DreamCenter is the flagship project of Shanghai’s West Bund Media Port, a 463,000-square-meter development featuring performing arts spaces, galleries, black box and IMAX theaters, as well as world-class retail and creative office spaces. Through the revitalization of a hundred-year-old former cement factory and other industrial artifacts, the neighborhood blends together its site’s industrial and cultural history to create a vibrant modern landmark. The LEED Gold-certified project spans four complementary structures, creatively adapting historic buildings to reduce embodied carbon and bring sustainability to the fore, while employing contemporary design in its new structures. This includes a cultural center that forms the visual centerpiece of the development, featuring a perforated bronze-colored aluminum façade, draped over lights to create a unique dappling effect.
At the street level, retail wraps around the project’s buildings, easily accessible to visitors. Below grade, a vast shared basement unites the structures, provides future flexibility, and creates parking space without impeding pedestrian flow. A central pedestrian spine at the heart of the DreamCenter links the buildings to each other with a multi-level design. Lifted outdoor walkways set a new high-water mark for mixed-use public developments by elevating pedestrians away from the street toward quieter plazas with lush gardens. Designed to be redolent of the alleys in Shanghai’s core, these walkways connect visitors to the nearby riverfront.
