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Nam Van Square
Nam Van Square
Macao
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Other Projects by LBA | Architecture & Planning
Nam Van Square
Macao
Type
STATUS
Built
YEAR
2001
SIZE
25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft
The commission of the Square in mid-2000, was one of the first political decisions taken on new infrastructure after the handover, a clear sign of the new administration’s commitment to bridge a dialogue with its colonial past. The main brief agenda for the Nam Van Square was to come up with the new civic space of Macau, in the new chapter of the city’s status after the administrative handover from Portuguese sovereignty back to China. Our main goal, when given the task to design a major new public space to celebrate the handover, was to create the opportunity for something new, free of any symbolism, though eager to pursue the hybridism of the urban form that consistently configured the city throughout the course of history.
The site was a roundabout located on the crossing of the two main roads of this reclamation. We were asked to design a public square amidst a vacant new reclamation area, with a highway passing below it, an intersection at grade and adjacent high speed traffic bridge under construction. The brief specifically called for seating across from the Macau Tower mega-screen and a main space capable of hosting the New Year’s Eve countdown and large outdoor concerts. The piazza could only settle as a civic space if the primary function of traffic flow was blurred away from sight. Our move to enlarge the roundabout included an added profile where we slotted a raised green crescent to the west and a stepped platform to the east, allowing for additional strolling pathways on the edge of the square but primarily blocking the moving cars away from sight.
After setting out a credible scale for the piazza, which had to civically demarcate the new reclamation, our main target was to connect the piazza with the larger landscape of the lake, developing the square as a stepped project, where the stairs and ramps become major elements to slope up the project across all the site levels. We covered the whole piazza with Portuguese cobblestone tiling, in a clear reference to traditional Portuguese public spaces. The cobblestone was designed with a new geometric pattern, due to the large scale of the oval piazza and its iconic views from the tower top and the bungee-jumping platforms, moving away from the Islamic pattern and the wave designs of Brazilian landscape architect Burlé Marx, which are the typical cobble stone themes used in Portugal and Macau designs.
We realized that the existing roundabout was too small to support the expected traffic and to house a public square, so decided to make it bigger, occupying all the extent of the roundabout reclamation with the footprint of the piazza, which resulted in a need to move the road infrastructure; so we moved the roads outside the edge of the reclamation. Instead of further reclaiming onto the lake, we projected the road on flyovers, which landed over the lake. We then proposed to landfill the areas below the flyovers with a lake level promenade, which doubled the area of the whole public space scheme. To allow access to water we widened the site, defining a variable profile of paths and landscaping.
The site was a roundabout located on the crossing of the two main roads of this reclamation. We were asked to design a public square amidst a vacant new reclamation area, with a highway passing below it, an intersection at grade and adjacent high speed traffic bridge under construction. The brief specifically called for seating across from the Macau Tower mega-screen and a main space capable of hosting the New Year’s Eve countdown and large outdoor concerts. The piazza could only settle as a civic space if the primary function of traffic flow was blurred away from sight. Our move to enlarge the roundabout included an added profile where we slotted a raised green crescent to the west and a stepped platform to the east, allowing for additional strolling pathways on the edge of the square but primarily blocking the moving cars away from sight.
After setting out a credible scale for the piazza, which had to civically demarcate the new reclamation, our main target was to connect the piazza with the larger landscape of the lake, developing the square as a stepped project, where the stairs and ramps become major elements to slope up the project across all the site levels. We covered the whole piazza with Portuguese cobblestone tiling, in a clear reference to traditional Portuguese public spaces. The cobblestone was designed with a new geometric pattern, due to the large scale of the oval piazza and its iconic views from the tower top and the bungee-jumping platforms, moving away from the Islamic pattern and the wave designs of Brazilian landscape architect Burlé Marx, which are the typical cobble stone themes used in Portugal and Macau designs.
We realized that the existing roundabout was too small to support the expected traffic and to house a public square, so decided to make it bigger, occupying all the extent of the roundabout reclamation with the footprint of the piazza, which resulted in a need to move the road infrastructure; so we moved the roads outside the edge of the reclamation. Instead of further reclaiming onto the lake, we projected the road on flyovers, which landed over the lake. We then proposed to landfill the areas below the flyovers with a lake level promenade, which doubled the area of the whole public space scheme. To allow access to water we widened the site, defining a variable profile of paths and landscaping.
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