Harbin Twin Towers will create an iconic new cityscape to complement China’s high speed railway network.
The proposed Harbin High Speed Railway West Train Station Twin Towers looks set to become an iconic fixture of China’s longest rail network.
Much like the great cities and towns that sprouted along the British and American railway projects of the mid nineteenth century, the city of Harbin, and the new West Train Station, will grow to become a business hub and northern China gateway.
Connecting to China’s major cities with daily high-speed links to Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the buildings will contain office spaces, residential apartments, retail spaces and a hyper link to a new underground infra-structural hub.
Sharing the same styling, but positioned differently, the towers act as a ‘Digital Gate’ framing the city and station with integrated media facades.
“The Towers create a balanced relationship between empty and full, mass and void, private and public,” explains Spatial Practice director Erik Amir.
“Each tower creates a program specific dialogue with the site, with the north service apartment tower atrium opening toward the plaza, and the south office tower atrium oriented toward the business district.”
With Spatial Practice directing the process, three specialist rendering companies from Harbin, Beijing, and Buenos Aires were involved to ensure the project met its six week deadline.
The architectural CAD data was taken from Rhino into 3ds Max, with a lot of the test shots being done in house.
Amir explains: “As always the most important part is to find the right atmosphere that express the concept of the project, the site and the time of the year. This was particularly challenging with Harbin’s harsh climate.”
Once the renders were completed Spatial Practice’s team picked out details such as the interior green terraces using Photoshop during post processing, adding in ethereal light qualities to the glasswork, and increased interior textures.
