Construction work has started on the huge 420,000m2 Shanghai Bund International Financial Centre in China, designed by the UK’s Thomas Heatherwick and Foster + Partners.
The project contains a hotel, cinema, central plaza and retail mall, with two commercial towers, and is designed to achieve LEED Gold certification.
It occupies a key site in the historic Bund area of the city, which once housed international trading houses and banks.
Another UK-based company, Mott MacDonald, is overseeing design strategy and supervising the construction.
The north plot of the project is due to be completed in 2014, with the south plot scheduled to finish in 2015.