2019 Highlights: A successful 60th anniversary year

In May 2019, Chapman Taylor celebrated its 60th birthday, having been established in 1959. Our anniversary year has seen another strong performance by Chapman Taylor, with major projects coming to fruition and many new opportunities, as well as winning several leading industry awards.

International growth

Key markets have included China, South East Asia and Saudi Arabia, where we expect to see good growth in the coming financial year.

Internationally, there is strong demand for our industry-leading design expertise in masterplanning, mixed-use, retail, leisure, office and hospitality projects.

UK

Over the last year, we successfully completed UK projects at Ashford Designer Outlet in Kent, the extension to which now incorporates Europe’s largest living green wall, and the delivery of the extension fit-out at London’s Cineworld O2 – London’s largest cinema.

We are continuing to work on the redevelopments of Coventry city centre and Bolton town centre, as well as a new Booking.com office headquarters, part of the St John’s development in Manchester.

Work in the residential sector across the UK is increasing steadily, with schemes in London, Bristol, and Manchester. Construction has started on Bristol’s tallest residential building, Castle Park View, for which we are providing architectural and interior designs, while work continues on the Kampus Build-to-Rent development in central Manchester.

Europe

In Germany, we completed the multi-award-winning City Plaza urban regeneration project in the German city of Wuppertal, focused on an expressive retail building which has transformed the urban character of the district around the city’s railway station.

We completed several landmark Central Europe projects in the office sector – including Class A developments in Bucharest occupied by companies such as Deloitte, Oracle and Philips.

Construction is under way at the mixed-use Flow Building in Prague’s historic Wenceslas Square.

Milanord 2 shopping centre in Milan will start on site this year. This will be the largest retail and leisure project in the city.

We also took part in a major international design competition for a new aviation and railway development near Warsaw called Solidarity Transport Hub, which was very well received by the judges.

China

We have won a number of mixed-use architectural projects for major Chinese clients, such as Vanke, in cities across China, including Xi’an and Shanghai – demonstrating how successfully our brand is developing in the country.

We are undertaking a number of important urban masterplanning competitions in China. This has included the winning entry for a major international design competition to create an ecological innovation zone on a 6.8km² site in Chongqing Liangjiang, central China – integrating universities, R&D support and significant social and leisure support facilities with the surrounding natural environment. One of the first buildings to be constructed will be our competition-winning design for the masterplan’s Exhibition Centre, while we have also recently won another design competition for a smart “Future Hotel” development in Chongqing.

We have designed a masterplan concept for a 27-hectare smart culture and technology district, Shanghai Media and Experience Hub, at Pujiang Media City. In collaboration with Martha Schwartz Partners, we created a 3.3-hectare masterplan for a culture and leisure-led mixed-use district and a landscaped public park at Shenzhen Bao’an in south-eastern China. We have also produced a 69km² conservation and tourism masterplan concept, Land of Giant Pandas in Chengdu, in collaboration with Shanghai Tianhua Architectural Design Company.

In addition, we will soon be developing designs for large mixed-use projects such as Jinqiao Mixed-Use District, where we won a design competition to create two retail-led blocks. Our design for RSUN Retail Street in Changzhou creates a sustainable and vibrant commercial district across two plots, with the 121,000m² retail and leisure component complemented by 61,000m² of office space and 22,000m² of cultural facilities.

Middle East

We have completed a number of prestigious international cinema developments, including the much-anticipated Muvi Cinema at Mall of Arabia in Jeddah and the Reel Cinemas complex at Dubai’s Al Ghurair Centre.

In KSA, we are acting as the Principal Consultant on a major urban mixed-use project in Madinah and are also involved in competitions relating to the kingdom’s extraordinary masterplan at Neom City and the Red Sea Project.

Central Asia

Currently nearing completion, Deniz Mall in Baku, Azerbaijan, will be a 120,000m² entertainment centre over five floors. A central ‘flame’ tower is surrounded by eight entertainment spaces with angled glass façades inspired by the eight-pointed star on Azerbaijan’s national emblem. Meanwhile, construction is well advanced on a major Baku residential quarter.

Construction is under way at the 135,000m² Port Baku Tower 2 office building in Azerbaijan and on Mustaqillik Avenue residential development in central Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

South and South-East Asia

Following the start of construction at the award-winning Mui Dinh Ecopark in Vietnam, we have created a 285-hectare masterplan concept for another three more eco-tourism destinations in Vietnam. We have masterplanned a new, 428-hectare cultural and ecological tourism resort at Sa Pa in Lao Cai Province and an eco-resort and spiritual retreat, Xuan Khanh Lake, at Son Tay, while the Hon Thi Eco-Islands project in Na Phu Bay includes a mix of commercial uses alongside residential, educational, R&D and cultural facilities across four islands.

In Thailand, we are currently completing two luxury villa resorts at Koh Phangan, while we are developing a smart city masterplan for one of the largest developments in Asia, which will be an exemplar of how buildings and cities will use the technology in the future.

Construction has begun on the Dolmen Mall shopping centre in Lahore, Pakistan, which will be a 75,000m² GLA luxury shopping centre located within the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) grounds in the city.

Planning permission has been granted for the 25-floor Orbit Towers office development in Hyderabad, India, which will provide 102,000m² GLA of office space for IT workers, with a food court and business centre on the ground floor. Meanwhile, construction is under way at the 75,000m² GLA M3M Financial Centre at Gurugram, which will add a 180m-tall, mixed-use landmark to the city’s skyline.

We will soon open a new Chapman Taylor studio in Hyderabad to support the design and implementation of the over 3 million m² of mixed-use office space we are involved with in the city.

Award-winning projects

Chapman Taylor projects won several industry awards in 2019 to add to our list of nearly 300 awards globally. These included winning prestigious MAPIC Awards in November for Wuppertal’s City Plaza (“Best Retail City Centre Regeneration”) and Val Saint Lambert Free Time Park in Belgium (“Best Futura Shopping Centre” – for which Chapman Taylor designed the leisure and entertainment provisions).

Mega Silk Way won the International Property Award for “Best International Retail Architecture in Kazakhstan”.

City Plaza also won a European Property Award for “Best Retail Architecture in Germany”, while Bestech 92 Marketplace won the 5* Asia-Pacific Property Award for “Best Mixed-use Architecture in India”. The Sriracha gateway project in Thailand won first place in the “Transportation (Concept)” category at the Rethinking the Future Construction & Design Awards.

Cineworld O2, the largest cinema in London, won “Leisure and Hospitality Project of the Year” at the 2019 AV Awards, while Galeria Młociny in Warsaw won 2019 Prime Property Prizes for “Green Building of the Year” and “Retail Investment of the Year”. Park View Grand Spa in Gurugram, India, won “Luxury Project of the Year” at the ET Now / Rise with India Awards, while NOI Techpark in Bolzano, Italy, won a Merit Award at the CREDAWARDS in Shanghai.

Looking to the year ahead

We have many projects under construction in countries across the world and in all our key market sectors, with notable schemes in the United Kingdom, Azerbaijan, China, the Czech Republic, Vietnam and Thailand.

With our continued emphasis on designing and delivering world-class, successful and commercially realistic designs, we look forward to 2020 bringing further global success to cap our 60^th anniversary celebrations.

marketing@chapmantaylor.com