Planning a better future

The design mirrors a Hong Kong tradition-a high intensity cultural district was created so that people's work, lives, shopping and entertainment are all mixed up together in a very rich pattern. It also includes a major park, a critical element for Hong Kong which is lacking in good, open public spaces.

A similar philosophy of respecting local history and tradition is also employed in the firm's current renovation of the Sanyang Road area in Wuhan, Hubei province-a model of which is presented at the Tsinghua show.

De Grey says because Wuhan is traditionally low-rise and has a number of historic areas, the vast majority of the design of the site is also a low-rise, yet high-density, development, again, offering a mixture of residential compounds, retail space, coffee shops, restaurants and entertainment venues.

"The planning is essentially all about bringing the scale down to the traditional scale of Wuhan," De Grey says.

A highlight of the exhibition is a selection of drawings done by Foster himself, covering a variety of signature projects over the years. They include those he did for the design of the eagle that sits behind the speaker's desk in the debating chamber of the Reichstag New German Parliament. In 1992, the firm won the contract to renovate the edifice, a project which was completed in 1999. The design of the huge eagle was one of the most symbolic features in the design.