Archi-Tectonics, the award-winning design firm founded by Winka Dubbeldam, has opened a new office, AT-UAD, in Hangzhou, China. Located at The Architectural Design & Research Institute of Zhejiang University, this is the firm’s third global office, with others located in New York City and The Netherlands. 
In the past few years, Archi-Tectonics has been actively involved in the urban design of Hangzhou. The new office will serve to forge new relations for Archi-Tectonics in the region while supporting existing projects underway in the area, most notably the 2022 Asian Games Park, a multi-functional, 47ha sports park. 
Awarded to Archi-Tectonics in an international competition, this major urban project is currently under construction. The firm’s master-plan includes the design for two stadiums – for table tennis and field hockey – at either end of a mile-long park, connected by a sunken mall. Using the sponge city concept as a driver for a net-zero earth strategy, the building program and landscape are fused in a green ecosystem, with artificial hills created from the earth excavated during construction and pockets of wetlands.
With a population of over 21 million, Hangzhou is China’s fourth-largest metropolitan area. The Asian Games, the biggest multisport event after the Olympics, will start a new chapter for the city, with new metro lines, inner-city railways and the sports park, a gorgeous, fluid landscape for the surrounding city. Conscious of the ghost-town fate of many Olympic villages, the architects designed it for long-term use, a legacy project for the people of Hangzhou.
Winka Dubbeldam, founder of Archi-Tectonics and UAD Art Director, says: “It is a great honour to work with the UAD research group at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou. This groundbreaking innovative research group will collaborate with us on both the ongoing Asian Games 2022 project and new work in China.”
