​What Would You Build Here? 10 Stellar Firms Compete to Design China’s “Pearl Eco-Island”

A star-studded cast of architects has been selected to participate in a competition to design the master plan and flagship buildings for South Sea Pearl Eco-Island in Haikou Bay, Hainan, China. Hainan Airlines Group is looking for innovative approaches to tackle this highly unusual site and create a new hub for eco-tourism in the South China Sea.

Image © GAO Wenzhonglow

The competition calls for a mixed-use program incorporating housing, hotels, multiple tourist attractions and a port with capacity for two large cruise ships. Submissions will be submitted by the following firms from around the globe:

Foster + Partners (U.K.)

Morphosis (U.S.)

Office of Architecture in Barcelona Carlos Ferrater Partnership (Spain)

Diller Scofidio + Renfro (U.S.)

IROJE Architects & Planners (South Korea)

UNStudio (The Netherlands)

KuiperCompagnons (The Netherlands)

The Jerde Partnership (U.S.)

CCDI (China)

Boston International Design Group (China)

The jury for the competition also contains some stellar names including Aaron Betsky, Benedetta Tagliabue, Donald Bates (Australia), Sergey Kuznetsov, Peter Poulet, Horacio Werner and Margarita Jover. The winning master plan will start construction in 2017, with a projected completion date of 2027, and will align with a strategic vision for the island devised by Vicente Guallart, director of Guallart Architects.

The teams visit the island and take in Vicente Guallart’s strategic vision; © Guallart Architects.

The artificial pearl-shaped island, a 250-hectare swirl of sand currently connected to the main island by a small access bridge, has been sculpted into a distinctive shape that reads as a marketable symbol on Google Earth — similar to Dubai’s manufactured islands and artificial archipelagos.

Strategic vision diagrams © Guallart Architects

While the prospect of luxury tourist resorts covering the island does not exactly scream “sustainability,” the developers are insisting that the competition entries should aim to “achieve a new urban development based on ecological principles.” Many of the big-name firms on the shortlist are well versed in the design of sustainable architecture, so the resulting proposals should prove fascinating.

Image © GAO Wenzhonglow

While we wait for the submissions to be announced in late August, we’re throwing open the debate: What would you build here? Should this kind of development even be permitted in the first place? Can it ever hope to truly benefit its surroundings from an ecological standpoint? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.