The Rockbund project has received an American Institute of Architects (AIA) Merit Award in the category of Urban Design. The project, which completed in 2023, has seen a collection of historic buildings located in the former European concession in central Shanghai, restored, upgraded and converted.
Accomplished over several phases and over an almost 20-year period, it incorporates eleven buildings built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on the western side of Yuanmingyuan Road. Improvements to the public space along the street and through a series of pedestrian passageways that weave between and behind the buildings are also a key part of the project. These connecting alleys transform traditionally internal leftover areas into extensions of the overall public program, linking inner squares formed between the historic eastern buildings and new residential buildings to the west.
The project has been credited with promoting a new approach to historic restoration in a Chinese context, demonstrating that heritage buildings can be preserved authentically rather than demolished or rebuilt.