The Oval partnership

The Oval partnership Our Multidisciplinary Team Transforms Cities and Creates Places You Want to Be.

Earlier this month, our Senior Director Dr. HAO Lin joined Swire Properties’ 2026 Construction Safety Forum in Shanghai,...
25/06/2026

Earlier this month, our Senior Director Dr. HAO Lin joined Swire Properties’ 2026 Construction Safety Forum in Shanghai, convened around the theme “Return Home Safely: Full-Cycle H&S Management”.

What stood out was a quiet but important shift in thinking. Safety is less a checklist applied to completed drawings than something shaped from the first sketch onwards. It is shaped by how a site is read, how materials are specified and how construction is sequenced.

Alan Lee, General Manager of Taikoo Li Xi’an, brought this into focus in his presentation, “Building Beyond Boundaries: Heritage, Innovation, Zero Harm”, reflecting on how the project carries forward the historic fabric of the Xiaoyan Pagoda district while introducing contemporary engineering practice.

For us at The Oval Partnership, currently working with Swire Properties on Taikoo Li Xi’an, that convergence is central to the work. Design is not only about form or experience. It is also about judgement: how a project comes together, how risk is reduced and how a place is made to endure.

Read more: https://www.ovalpartnership.com/en/project/Taikoo-Li-Xi-an

(Photo Credit: Swire Properties)

04/06/2026

A reception desk can do more than organise arrival. It can hold memory, history and a deep respect for materials.

For Hang Lung Properties’ head office, we designed "The Scents and the Soil" from a 400-year-old camphor trunk salvaged by HK Timberbank. Working with HK Timberbank, we used 3D scanning to map every cavity and grain of the timber, ensuring almost nothing was wasted. The sculptural form was milled, fitted, and finished by hand with oil, leaving the grain open so the scent of the camphor still rises.

Carrying 400 years of stored carbon and echoing Hakka traditions, the piece asks a practical question: what if fallen timber were treated as a resource rather than landfill? For us, this is where sustainability becomes tangible. It means working closely with what already exists to find value in what might otherwise be lost.

Featured in this winner’s highlight video from the 2025 International Sustainable Design Awards, the project was recognised in the Aesthetic Visionary and Global Excellence categories.

Read more: https://www.ovalpartnership.com/en/project/The-Scents-and-the-Soil

At HKRI Taikoo Hui on Shanghai's Nanjing Road (West), The Oval Partnership completed a programme of upgrades in 2025. On...
25/05/2026

At HKRI Taikoo Hui on Shanghai's Nanjing Road (West), The Oval Partnership completed a programme of upgrades in 2025. One year on, the results are coming through.

Set at the heart of Jing'an District, this joint venture between Swire Properties and HKR International blends luxury retail, offices, hotels and heritage elements. Working across all landlord-controlled exterior areas, our scope covered connectivity, entrances and landscape.

Street-level interfaces along Shimen Road (No.1) and Weihai Road were redesigned, pedestrian links to metro lines 2, 12 and 13 made more intuitive, and public spaces reconfigured to support a balanced rhythm – efficient transit access to the north, more relaxed and naturally lit environments drawing people southward.

These upgrades weren't cosmetic. Elevating the physical setting was central to repositioning the destination for a new calibre of tenant, most visibly Louis Vuitton's striking, boat-shaped concept store, "The Louis”.

A wave of new flagship tenants has followed, alongside a clear lift in footfall. It’s a clear example of how targeted public realm design can directly drive commercial transformation.

Photo Credit: 6254436277 @ rednote

Retail can be more than a box on a podium. At Taikoo Li Sanlitun North, we treated commercial space as urban infrastruct...
30/04/2026

Retail can be more than a box on a podium. At Taikoo Li Sanlitun North, we treated commercial space as urban infrastructure, continuous with the city rather than sealed off from it.

Working with Swire Properties, we developed a street-based model that preserved Sanlitun's existing urban grain. Fine-scaled pedestrian routes and alley-like connections drew from Beijing's hutong typology, replacing the conventional enclosed mall with a low-density network of individually designed buildings. The result is a porous environment where retail, culture and public life share the same ground.

The North District formed part of a wider "Open City" strategy. Its quieter, courtyard-influenced character was a deliberate counterpoint to the South District's energy, each setting off the other.

Two decades on, Taikoo Li Sanlitun North reads less as a standalone development and more as a piece of the city. It proved that commercial space could be open, adaptive and at home in the city, at a time when the default across China was still the inward-looking mall.

Photo Credit: 679598533 @ RedNote

Westlake 66 in Hangzhou officially opened yesterday.Built on the historic "place of a hundred wells"—Baijingfang—the des...
29/04/2026

Westlake 66 in Hangzhou officially opened yesterday.

Built on the historic "place of a hundred wells"—Baijingfang—the design draws from the site's old communal water points, reinterpreting them as a fluid network of social spaces. Instead of rigid mall corridors, it creates an intuitive flow guided by light, with terraced sculptural ceilings and skylights that evoke sunlight filtering into a deep pool. Warm fluted marble, rippling metal and wave-like lattices bring a quiet tactile quality throughout.

A thoughtful take on placemaking with our client Hang Lung Properties.

Photo Credit:
Image 4: SUPERCITY @ RedNote
Image 5: Hang Lung Properties

How can architecture do more by giving space back to public life? This question drove our design for Shenzhen Bay Cultur...
27/04/2026

How can architecture do more by giving space back to public life?

This question drove our design for Shenzhen Bay Cultural Plaza, one of China's most ambitious emerging waterfront districts. Rather than dominating the site, our approach was straightforward: step the built form back and let the landscape lead. By making room for shaded routes and planted spaces, the design integrates commerce with genuine public space and encourages people to slow down and stay.

To get there, we used our Digital Placemaking approach: modelling pedestrian behaviour across the multi-level site before construction began. This evidence-based testing allowed us to refine connectivity across the masterplan, ensuring the architecture directly serves the pedestrian experience.

Recently, we joined AIA Hong Kong and China Resources Land for a walking tour of the area, taking in the masterplan alongside work by MAD Architects and KPF, and experiencing firsthand how public spaces, pedestrian networks and waterfront access shape how people actually use the district.

Shenzhen Bay Cultural Plaza offers a bold model for 21st-century urban living: architecture, mobility, landscape and community woven together. What stayed with us after the walk wasn't any single building – it was how naturally people moved between them.

Read more: https://www.ovalpartnership.com/en/project/Shenzhen-Bay-Cultural-Plaza

Photo Credit:
Photo 1 - RedNote @ 596545654
Photo 2 - RedNote @ hi_design2014
Photo 3 - Roca Shanghai Gallery

Swipe fatigue is real. People are logging off dating apps and stepping back into the real world, but where exactly are t...
15/04/2026

Swipe fatigue is real. People are logging off dating apps and stepping back into the real world, but where exactly are they supposed to go?

For those of us who think about cities and spaces for a living, this cultural shift is a massive opportunity.

One answer is taking shape in Kuala Lumpur: a disused railway depot turned pickleball hub. PickleDepot at Sentul Depot has become exactly the kind of everyday hangout cities need more of. Social by design and low-pressure by nature, it is layered with the kind of industrial character no developer can manufacture from scratch.

The appetite for genuine, in-person connection is real. The spaces to support it should be too.

Read our latest feature: https://www.ovalpartnership.com/en/article/Real-world-Dating-Bounces-Back

(Photo 1 Credit: Sentul Depot / Photo 3 Credit: Instagram @ sisnithaofficial)

What does it mean to create a truly sustainable place? As cities evolve, sustainability is no longer just about efficien...
09/04/2026

What does it mean to create a truly sustainable place? As cities evolve, sustainability is no longer just about efficiency, it is about meaning.

At the CIFF Luminous Path Theme Forum, Dr. HAO Lin shared how long-term success starts with places people genuinely connect with.

From an ESG perspective, great placemaking integrates environmental responsibility, economic relevance, and social inclusivity. It goes beyond performance, demanding imagination, innovation, and genuine participation. In an age of speed and automation, the real question is no longer what we can build, but what truly matters.

Through projects like Taikoo Li Chengdu and 1 Hotel Haitang Bay, we are learning how craftsmanship, cultural sensitivity, and co-creation might come together to support more resonant, living places.

When cities get too hot to walk, design has to step in. Across Asia, rising temperatures are quietly reshaping how peopl...
08/04/2026

When cities get too hot to walk, design has to step in.

Across Asia, rising temperatures are quietly reshaping how people move. In Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok, extreme heat and humidity are making walking increasingly unbearable. People retreat into cars and malls, draining the life from streets that were never meant to be empty.

Keeping cities walkable in a warming world means treating thermal comfort as seriously as density or connectivity. Green corridors, shaded walkways, cooler materials and smarter routing aren't nice-to-haves. In the tropics, they're the difference between a street people use and one they avoid.

The tropical 15-minute city can work, but only if we design for it.

Read our latest feature on adapting urban infrastructure for heat-stressed cities: https://www.ovalpartnership.com/en/article/From-brisk-to-barely-moving

(Photo 1 Credit: Andre Malerba / Photo 2 Credit: Rungroj Yongrit / Photo 3 Credit: AFP)

Can AI predict how a space feels?Good urban designers have always known how to read a street. Where people slow down. Wh...
01/04/2026

Can AI predict how a space feels?

Good urban designers have always known how to read a street. Where people slow down. Which corners feel uneasy after dark. Where one small thing, moved slightly, might change everything. That intuition hasn't stopped mattering.

What's changed is what we can do alongside it. AI tools can now simulate pedestrian movement, test sightlines, and model how a space breathes across a season. Not to replace judgment, but to test it.

This is quietly reshaping the profession. The drawing remains, but the questions have changed. What does the data actually mean for the people using this place? Which interventions are truly worth making? This blend of analysis and instinct is where the real work now happens.

The tools are getting sharper. The harder question is: are we asking them the right things? What do you think?

Read more: https://www.ovalpartnership.com/en/article/AI-Enhanced-Placemaking-in-Urban-Context

(Photo Credit: Wojciech Ostrowski)

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