Based in New York, Sergio Mannino, an Italian Architect defines global design sensibilities in Shenzhen’s modern cityscape
China has served as a canvas for a number of renowned architects and designers who have extolled this nation in the Far East with their creative expressions and one of the names in this creative league is Sergio Mannino Studio. Based in New York, the design studio recently completed a project in China which involves an integration of Chinese expectations with a global design sensibility. The story started when Sergio received an invitation from Area 17, an architectural firm with offices in China to bid on a large residential development in the city of Shenzhen, 30 minutes from Hong Kong in China’s Guangdong province.
“The client asked us to design 3 apartment showroom, the lobbies of the 3 towers, and all the spaces in between. They were targeting three different groups of people: a young couple; a young couple with kids; an older couple with possibly one parent living with them. They wanted a fresh design that would appeal to a new generation of Chinese that travel a lot and are exposed to an international design aesthetic.” says Sergio who incepted Sergio Mannino Studios back in 2008.
In order to respond to the client needs it was essential for the studio to understand the nature of Chinese sumptuousness, this entailed a visit to the several new residential projects in Shenzhen and nearby Hong Kong. The designers found that these projects were all characterized by a high level of decor; there were no white walls or plain surfaces anywhere. This was quite unlike minimalism in the west and initially did pose as a challenge in the overall creative dynamics.
“Good design is when you can create something that reflects the values of the society you live in, or to be more precise the values of the society you would like to live in. In this design journey we realised that luxury in China is often defined by an abundance of materials and finishes, especially stone and marble. Keeping note of the Chinese sensibilities we arrived at a design which used a lot of ceramic tiles, marble and wood floors. In the lobbies we used a white marble with laser-cut insets of green and red marble, following a design that I personally sketched on paper.”
The project consists of three apartments and the nomenclature too was quite specific. ‘Millenia’ was targeted at young couples, then there’s ‘Green’ which was designed using a lot of natural materials and ‘New Classic’ which is based on a classical French design and targeted at people who prefer a traditional setting.
Given the scale of this project it was executed 18 months, says Sergio “It took about a year and a half from the first meetings to the full design. We were working while the buildings were under construction and many solutions were dictated by last minute changes. In a project of this scale this is quite normal and overall, I think the whole process went on smoothly.” In addition the interior accessories were also curated by the design studio; Area 17 Hong Kong too offered their expertise to this exercise.
A project where design values are reinvigorated with a global though process requires a diverse team. For this project Sergio Mannino Studios had a team in New York, one in Beijing and one in Italy working non-stop 24 hours a day. When one team closed the files, another team opened them and the process continued. This team was composed of Italians, with a few Chinese members. “The experience and insight of Area-17 who had been working in China for almost 15 years,” says Sergio” also came in handy since they understood very well what the client was expecting from us at every stage.”
After all the hard work paid off and the project was well received and the apartments were sold at asking price and more. In the housing market where unpredictability denotes a margin of risk, it is safe to call this project “a silver lining on the real estate cloud”.
Connect Online@www.sergiomannino.com
