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BUSINESS NEWS LEAD8’S QIANHAI GUANZE
MIXED-USE
China, Qianhai Guanze is a 420,000 square- meter mixed-use development overlooking the Shenzhen River waterfront, integrating two Class A office towers, a five-star hotel, 50,000 square-meters of retail mall, and two serviced apartment buildings. Lead8 helmed the project masterplanning, retail architecture, interior design, and serviced apartments’ facade, in collaboration with developer Horoy Holdings. Goetssch Partners , is directing the architectural design for the two office towers and the hotel. The holistic design is the creation of a dynamic, highly visible landmark for the city. The project vision is to create a new urban destination with alternative outdoor experiences, retail, and commercial activities for the community. Embracing the city’s commitment to green design, Qianhai Guanze mixed-use development is driven by the concept of “Town-within-a-Garden,” and manifests in the form of a public urban park that helps to reconnect people with nature, while functioning as a green community asset. Green roofs and walkways, garden spaces, and landscaped plazas connect pedestrians with the outdoor environment and to the public transportation system, as well as to adjacent sites and neighbouring developments. The
five-level retail podium, connecting the office and residential towers, acts to anchor the development. “Qianhai Guanze mixed-use development creates a forward-looking identity for this new financial district,” said David Buffonge, co- founder and executive director of Lead8. “Its prominent location along Qianhai’s green belt makes the development an inspiring urban environment for living, entertaining and work in Shenzhen. We are pleased to play a part in creating this unique development that will encourage interaction between people across different spaces.” Qianhai Guanze mixed-use development is designed with an emphasis on the outdoor environment and connected living, and is due for completion in 2020. Lead8 is an international architecture and design practice driven by creativity, integrity, and excellence in design. Lead8 creates new horizons in design thinking, delivering bespoke masterplanning, architecture, interiors, and graphic design services to create world-class, cutting-edge design solutions tailored to the needs of clients and the communities projects impact.
DEVELOPMENT WINS BEST CONCEPTUAL DESIGN CATEGORY AT S.ARCH INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE AWARDS Lead8 , the award- winning international firm of architects, masterplanners, interior and graphic designers, has been awarded The S.ARCH International Architecture Award for the Best Conceptual Design Category Urban Project for its design of the Qianhai Guanze mixed-use development in Shenzhen, China. The S.ARCH International Architecture Awards recognise excellence in architecture and urbanism, architectural diversity, and exemplary sustainable architecture implementations of projects and structures around the world. Particular attention is given to building/design schemes that use local resources and innovative design solutions. “This award is such an honour for us, especially given the focus is on sustainable architecture. This is something very close to our hearts and our design philosophy at Lead8. Accepting this award for a project in Shenzhen, China, here in the heart of beautiful Havana, is also gratifying,” said Co-Founder and Executive Director Claude Touikan. Located in a new financial district in Shenzhen,
KEVIN TOKEN, from page 3
team and more quickly. The team, empowered to do whatever necessary, replaced the three-phase approach with a stream- lined process pulling necessary information from the client more efficiently. The result was a great design completed in a quarter of the anticipated time. In today’s market, things change quickly. All of us must react to market forces, current trends, and changing customer needs. In the middle of a recent project, our client changed their strategy. We went from designing a medical office build- ing to designing an entirely new hospital for the same site. We needed to respond nimbly, without the restrictions of command-and-control management. Our trusted designer couldn’t sit around waiting for a principal to make decisions. We gave the designer the authority to adapt to the changing project environment, and he came through with an innova- tive solution good for the client and the speed of the project. ❚ ❚ Empowerment results in strategic thinking. A leader who spends all his or her time “doing” isn’t spending time strat- egizing. Leaders who use a command-and-control manage- ment style end up managing details, identifying what needs to be done and how it should be done, instructing employees on what to do and how to do it, then checking to make sure it was done in the identified way. On the other hand, leaders who provide goals, guidelines, and training to do the work, find themselves with time to spend on big-picture thinking. An empowerment culture is a culture of innovation, collaboration, and success. It is not a culture that can be created overnight; it requires intention. It is the kind of culture that will allow for an enhanced client experience which may be the hallmark of the coming decade. KEVIN TOKEN is chairman and CEO at BSA LifeStructures. He can be reached at ktoken@bsalifestructures.com.
solutions. I don’t want to be told specifically what to do and how to do it.” She didn’t say the word “empowerment,” but that’s what she described. The desire to collaborate is evident in a culture of empower- ment. People approach the edge of their comfort zones then seek input from others to validate their ideas or to discover improved solutions. Consequently, an empowered staff gets results from collaboration that may be superior to solutions produced by one high-functioning brain. In addition, relation- ships and trust are built within the organization creating a positive environment. ❚ ❚ Empowerment boosts innovation and speeds up the pro- cess. When someone is given a goal and guidelines, but not told how to accomplish the task, new ideas happen. People try new things, and this can lead to a better result. As an indus- try, we are hamstrung by the phases of schematic design, de- sign development, and construction documents. In our firm, we were challenged to meet a client’s needs with a smaller “Empower the person closest to the decision point. If a designer in the field is asked a question, the answer to that question may impact time, money, and quality. If that designer has the authority and the training to answer the question without consulting others, the project can keep moving.”
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THE ZWEIG LETTER May 20, 2019, ISSUE 1297
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