A new public plaza anchoring Shenzhen’s emerging Central Social District, KPF’s design for The Wave emerges from a deep engagement with the waterfront ecology of Shenzhen Bay, the geometry of the surrounding urban fabric, and the human need for pause within a city defined by velocity.
Facing Talent Park and the Shenzhen Bay waterfront, with views extending toward Futian CBD and Hong Kong, The Wave occupies a unique position within the Houhai Central Business District. The urban plan integrates a circular sunken plaza, a freestanding rectilinear pavilion, and a cascading, curved water curtain into a composition that engages in a deliberate geometric dialogue with the adjacent KPF-designed China Resources Tower supertall.
Water functions as the organizing principle of The Wave—at once a material, a metaphor, and a technical achievement. Fountains, still reflecting pools, and a tiered acrylic water curtain introduce simultaneous qualities of movement and calm, deepening the spatial experience and drawing elements of nature into the heart of the city. The water curtain is distinguished by a bespoke pattern engraved into transparent acrylic, which reinterprets the façade language of the China Resources Tower at an intimate scale, extending the architectural dialogue across program, material, and dimension.
The sunken plaza, pavilion, and water curtain are interwoven components of a unified spatial narrative: The circular geometry of the sunken plaza engages the form of the adjacent tower and inverts its verticality; the pavilion mediates between the commercial and civic realms; and the water curtain animates the threshold between them. The result is a space that is at once architecturally precise and experientially open—a slow space within a fast city, designed for gathering, lingering, and connecting.
