Yiwu Place

Yiwu Place, also known as Yiwu Xiachemeng, is a contemporary, mixed-use, commercial complex that incorporates a rich variety of architectural forms, communal areas, and traditional materials to promote urban exploration and interaction.

Reimagining the Town Center

Yiwu place is a mixed-use project that challenges the long established separation of commercial and residential uses in Chinese city centers. The site has both a resident and transitory retail population, and the dynamic of the two groups sharing spaces creates a more authentic metropolitan experience.

A colorful site plan depicting an urban development area, with buildings shaded in yellow and orange, green spaces, and roads labeled with names. The design includes internal courtyards, pedestrian pathways, and surrounding public spaces, such as parks and plazas.

Concept Masterplan

The local government’s desire to learn from traditional European city centers, where different uses intermingle in close proximity, guided our concept.

A schematic urban layout with red-outlined pathways connecting different parts of the site. Thick red-bordered boxes highlight key access points or nodes within the circulation network. The base map is faded to emphasize the circulation structure.

Diversity of Spaces

Yiwu Place is characterized by its many open spaces of highly varying scales, from expansive public plazas to intimate back street courtyards.

A site plan illustrating an urban area with a network of green pathways connecting various points across the layout. The pathways are highlighted in green, with nodes represented by circles. Red-orange building icons mark key structures along the paths. Two circular insets at the top and bottom of the image depict natural landscapes, suggesting connections to green spaces or parks beyond the site. Streets labeled as "Cheng Zhong Road," "Huang Yuan Road," "Nan Men Street," and "Chou Zhou Road" frame the edges of the plan. Trees and other landscaping elements are scattered throughout the area, emphasizing greenery integration.

Green Network

Parks to both the north and south anchor the development and are connected by a central green promenade, which flows outward into alleys and side streets, bringing vegetation into all public spaces.

A site plan divided into distinct, color-coded zones labeled with names. At the center, a pink area labeled "Il Quartiere" contains "Le Marché." Surrounding it, a blue corridor labeled "The Boulevard" runs horizontally across the site. Adjacent to this are green zones labeled "Garden Square," located on both the left and right sides, as well as a larger green area at the bottom labeled "Il Villaggio." At the top, a yellow zone includes labels such as "La Spina," "The Cloister," and "The Gate." Streets labeled "Cheng Zhong Road," "Huang Yuan Road," "Nan Men Street," and "Chou Zhou Road" outline the site's borders. Nearby landmarks like "Xiu Hu Plaza" and "Chou Zhou Park" are noted outside the site, providing context.

Neighborhood Identities

Dividing the large development into several sub-neighborhoods, each with its own distinct character assists in wayfinding and invites visitors to discover and explore.

A vibrant outdoor commercial plaza at dusk, featuring brick buildings with large windows and arched facades on either side. The center of the plaza is bustling with people walking, shopping, and socializing. A reflective canopy structure is suspended above the plaza, adding a modern design element. On the far end, a building with a gable roof displays a sign reading "Yiwu Place" in both English and Chinese. Warm lighting from shops and restaurants creates an inviting atmosphere. Residential buildings are visible in the background, blending urban and community settings. The wet pavement suggests recent rain, adding a reflective sheen to the scene.

A vibrant, illuminated aerial view of a modern urban complex at dusk, featuring brick-clad buildings with large windows and pitched roofs. The central plaza has a striking sculpture resembling a curved metallic canopy and is surrounded by walkways with people strolling and gathering. The buildings house retail and commercial spaces, with bright interior lighting visible through their glass facades. Rooftops include greenery and solar panels, while high-rise residential buildings frame the scene in the background. The area exudes a lively, inviting atmosphere.

A lively street-level view of a modern shopping district at dusk, featuring contemporary architecture with clean lines and large glass windows. The central focus is a corner building housing a "Peet's" café with warm lighting and outdoor seating. To the right, a taller structure with brick and stone accents hosts "Urban Revivo" retail space. People are walking and shopping along the wide, paved pedestrian walkway, surrounded by small trees and landscaped greenery. The sky is clear, transitioning into soft hues of blue as evening approaches, adding to the inviting atmosphere.

A front-facing view of a modern retail and dining complex at dusk, characterized by a large central building with a pitched roof and expansive glass facade that reveals warm, inviting interiors. The structure is framed by brick and black metal accents, and its entrance is highlighted by a striking, suspended metallic sculpture resembling a flowing fabric. The foreground features a tiled plaza with pedestrians walking and gathering, while the lower level includes shops and outdoor seating areas under umbrellas. The background is lined with tall, contemporary residential buildings against a soft, blue evening sky.

A Sense of Discovery

In this new urban quarter, our intention was to create a sense of discovery and to encourage people to dwell, qualities that are lacking in conventional retail mall planning. Approximately 300 shops line 20 streets and 20 squares of varied scales, each individually designed, which together recall the spatial variation of a district that was built incrementally over a long period of time.

La Spina

At the northern end of the development is La Spina, a grand shopping street and anchor for Yiwu Place.

La Spina is home to some of the site’s major architectural gems, including a large marketplace and the main entrance to the district.

Il Quartiere

Centered on the main north-south promenade, Il Quartiere steps down in scale from La Spina to create a more intimate retail space.

Materially eclectic and texturally rich, visitors will find quieter streets and intimate alleys in Il Quartiere.

Il Villagio

At the southern terminus of the promenade is Il Villagio, a site surrounded by denser residential towers.

In Il Villagio, the promenade becomes home to even smaller scale retail.

Avenues, side streets, and alleyways lead to piazzas, piazettas, courtyards, garden squares—each different in character and dimension. This spatial variation builds anticipation, visitors experience a sense of continuous discovery as they move through the neighborhood. Some spaces are more transitory while others invite visitors to linger. This modulation of tempo contrasts with more conventional shopping centers with long continuous circulation arcs.

Placemaking Through Material

Varied materials and articulation of the individual shopfronts create visual drama and complement variation in the dimension of the exterior spaces.

The shop front designs are modular, and a small group of typologies repeats throughout the district with material variations. Some streets are more consistent in expression while others contain more variation. Landmark typologies terminate vistas and create centers of gravity, chief among these is the central market hall, while various secondary and tertiary rotundas, lanterns, and towers assist in wayfinding.