Shanghai, China, 2000.

In the 1990s, China began a process of economic liberalization by opening its markets and gradually releasing the State’s decades-long grip on the economy. As a result, by the turn of the twentieth-century, a new group of people emerged in Chinese society, especially in Shanghai, the Mainland’s largest commercial centre. This group is China’s new middle class: young professionals, entrepeneurs and businesspeople, many of whom are employed by large Western multinationals and were educated in the West. In looking for a place to live, this new class of people is still constrained by China’s dense and crowded urbanity, but is looking to live in something nicer than the typical Chinese urban apartment block—something more luxurious, fresher and more lively. Seeing a pressing demand for higher quality housing, property developers asked Taoho Design to create Vanke Waltz Garden, a middle-class neighbourhood in the city of Shanghai for about 2 500 residents.

Vanke Waltz Garden, which is across the street from our Everbright Centre, is conceived as more a “garden” than simple “apartments.” Landscaping is very important and the neighbourhood’s buildings are placed around an intricate series of gardens. Through sculptural landscaping and the placement of terraces and pools, the garden becomes a calm oasis, a place of shared space, which is a pleasant contrast to the urban chaos outside. The apartment buildings themselves are cast in a distinctly modernist, linear vernacular that has allusions to Shanghai’s celebrated art deco concession architecture. Units come in a variety of sizes and models. Thanks to large windows and porches, they are bright and airy.

Important artistic details are included in the exterior to distinguish the subdivision from the typical Chinese residential neighbourhood, which are often grey and dark. Exterior details—piping, porches, windowsills, etc—are painted various colours, and the main building on street side is crowned with a magnificent and dramatic curvilinear cornice.

Vanke Waltz Garden significantly raised the bar for middle-class housing in China. Since its opening, Vanke Walz has been the source of inspiration for many residential projects throughout the country as China’s new middle-classes look to live in spaces that are, simply put, nicer.