Recently, the 2018 Middle East International Conference was held by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Based on the annual theme of the conference, "Polycentric Cities: The Future of Vertical Urbanism", the host invited the participants to share perspectives, collaboratively probing into the topics of “innovative ultra-high-rise design trends” and “progressive urban-development strategies”.   

Ping Jiang, Design Principal of EID Architecture, and Michael Morgan, Design Director of Hong Kong Studio were invited to attend. Within the conference, Morgan was invited to deliver a speech demonstrating “New Dimensions of High Density Urban Mixed-use”, presenting on topics as, optimizing urban spatial structure with ultra-high-rise developments, enlarging public open space for urban inhabitants, establishing three-dimensional community, and etc. Utilizing numbers of practicing experiences as examples, Morgan had a profound seminar with professions around the world, exploring opportunities that lead to further urban and architectural achievements for the industry.

In response to the rapid developments of high-density urban settlements, EID Arch selected three featured mixed-used and ultra-high-rise projects from the previous works with diverse scales and development stages: OCT Xi'an International Cultural Center (OXICC), Shimao Riverfront Twin Towers in Hangzhou, and Shimao Fuzhou 518 project, to discuss its practice and research on the advanced high-rise architecture. As for OXICC and Hangzhou Twin Towers, both of which are currently under construction, they establish diverse urban experiences, integrate humanized and permeable interface with the context, along with optimizing the embracement of public transportation and infrastructures. Both of the designs go beyond the existing urban planning strategies and offer new solutions for enabling creations of open-space in high-density urbanism. Besides, the designs also address and overcome the issue of lacking flexible frameworks for accommodating potential changes in architectural design nowadays. Shimao Fuzhou 518 Tower, one of the latest ultra-high-rise projects that has been shortlisted for competition awards, illustrates how design concepts could be well balanced with the implements of structure and construction, in order to establish an iconic and futuristic landmark architecture with the most efficient and economic tectonic system.