ABSTRACT
The SPG Shanghai Project is an unbuilt competition design created by engineers and architects working at the firm of SOM. This case study looks at the collaboration between professionals with different disciplinary backgrounds within same organization and role of competitions in interdisciplinary collaboration. This project brings together diverse expertise and creates a design that addresses urban connectivity and human scale, energy efficiency, pollution mitigation and structural feasibility. Craig Hartman, design partner in SOM's San Francisco office and lead architect on the project, describes SOM's practice as 'fundamentally interdisciplinary'. In addition to architecture and engineering services, the firm also engages in urban design, interior architecture, product design, and graphic design. The project, which was designed in 2010, is a large urban block in a rapidly developing part of Shanghai and was designed as part of developer SPG's bid to buy land from the Chinese government. The migration associated with massive urbanization is a huge cultural shift for those formerly rural inhabitants.
