Developing new neighbourhoods and the urban environment

Smart Cities is a term often used to describe digitalised cities. In times of climate change and demographic upheavals, planning the cities of the future is about much more than networked households.

For us, Smart City means a sustainable, multifunctional city worth living in. 

The global climatic changes show us the limits and consequences of our actions. A strictly performance and profit-oriented approach in the construction industry is not adequate for our future living spaces. We must answer the questions that climate change, migration and our mobility raise in terms of urban development.

We deal with these questions on a variety of planning levels: In Germany, we work primarily at the neighbourhood level, in China on the conception of entire cities.

The construction boom of recent years has not only led to numerous new buildings in the city centres, but also to the revitalisation of entire neighbourhoods. Areas of abandoned industrial areas, facilities (e.g. freight yards) or office structures that cannot be revitalised are being developed into new mixed-use areas, partly due to the lack of housing. 

The following applies: the denser the urban landscape, the greater the mix of uses. 

Our projects Four Frankfurt and Südliche Überseequartier in Hamburg show this particularly clearly: living, working, shopping and discovering combine to create lively, innovative and sustainable neighbourhoods. 

The planning priorities of accessibility, materiality, flexibility and networking of public areas and routes are particularly conducive to sustainability. Whether at the neighbourhood level or for the entire city, these topics are relevant at any scale.

Cities for satisfied residents

The Chinese Governement today calls for concepts for architecture and urban development that focuses on the satisfaction of future residents and their being implemented in a top quality manner.

There will be no more isolated satellite or commuter cities in the conglomeration of economic centers. Rethinking in terms of sustainable use of resources has also long since arrived in China, for example every fourth solar panel in the world is now being installed in China. 

Density and variety

One of the challenges in Chinese urban development in particular, is how to deal with the enormous density of existing urban structures. They often lack any human scale, diversity or references to the surroundings as well as continuous public space.

Our solution is to combine various degrees of density: Different volumes are combined within a block in order to increase permeability and ensure development not only at the edges of the space. The "permeability of the blocks" also includes the continuation and extension of the open urban spaces to develop their through the entire city. 

Compaction also includes the mix of uses and so for example, we combine office, commercial and hotel uses within the same building or block. 

Designing places on site

HPP has been active in the Chinese market since 2002 and has its own offices in Shanghai (opened in 2006), Beijing (opened in 2017) and Shenzhen (opened in 2019). The breakthrough for our commitment was the competition we won in 2006 for the Expo Village at the World Expo in Shanghai 2010.

Multifaceted project teams for multifaceted cities

With our international team and experts from all disciplines, we have a special understanding of what it means to bring diversity, density, identity and health together in a Smart City. 

We believe in the integration of the various disciplines available in our company when planning urban development: architecture, urban design and landscape architecture. All these experts help us to find the smartest ecological and functional solution for every area.