Danish architecture studio schmidt hammer lassen architects have won an international competition to design a new cultural home for the city of Shanghai, China.

The studio will preserve and expand the 1950s West Shanghai Worker’s Cultural Palace – a popular activity centre for union workers and city-dwellers – for the Shanghai Labour Union and the district government.

Their winning proposal features multiple cultural facilities, including a theatre, cinema, art and exhibition spaces, sports facilities and a transport hub all set within a new eight hectare public park.

The facilities will be housed in four new multi-functional towers. These will be constructed on an interlinked plinth along a lakeside in the park.

The lower levels of these publicly-accessible structures will include a performance theatre, a training and education centre and galleries set within open and transparent spaces. The higher levels will provide space for multi-functional cultural activities, as well as offices. The basement levels of the towers will be connected, adding a space for shops, links to the city’s subway system and indoor sports facilities, including a sports hall and ice rink.

“This project is all about people,” said Chris Hardie, partner at schmidt hammer lassen. “At the beginning of the project we spent a lot of time on the existing site observing how the community and public used the park spaces around the lake. It became obvious how loved this amenity within the heart of the city was.

“At the same time we realised there wasn’t another large scale park in the area. From this point onwards our focus became how to maximise the amount of open public park from one hectare to around six hectares on an overall eight hectare site – whilst creating a new cultural destination of over 80,000sq m (861,000sq ft). Our proposal deals with this whilst proposing a series of covered and open spaces at street and park level.”

The studio will work with local firm East China Architectural Design & Research Institute (ECADI) on the project. The cost and estimated completion date have not yet been revealed.

schmidt hammer lassen architects is working on several other Shanghai projects, including three new landmark culture buildings in the West Bund area and a 25,000sq m (269,000sq ft) Performance Arts Centre in the same district.

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