Architecture practice Atelier Global have won an international design competition to design Shenzhen Book City; a vast mixed-use leisure district in the Chinese metropolis.

Anchoring the Long Hua arts district, the six-storey building will feature a library, bars and restaurants, shops and rooftop sports facilities. Cultural spaces on all four sides will integrate with the building and flow into a large area of public realm in the atrium. Landscaped terraces will create additional places for citizens to meet and socialise.

“The design will become a significant part of Shenzhen’s urban history,” said Atelier Global in a design statement. “The site is located among art centres, a public park and urban villages. Our design aims to rejuvenate this district by making the architecture an interlocking system of cultural spaces.

“The façade is composed of vertical shading devices to filter sunlight at different angles, and these also evoke the dynamic condition of flipping a book.”

The project is scheduled for completion in 2020.

Shenzhen was formed in 1980 as a Special Economic Zone, and has grown from a rural backwater into China's richest city – with a per capita GDP of US$23,749 – and a population of an estimated 18 million people.

The city government has been investing heavily in leisure and culture in recent years, with the Book City set to join a host of other vast mixed-use developments in the pipeline.

Pritzker-winning Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki is creating a cultural hub in the formerly industrial neighbourhood of Shekou that will house a new Victoria and Albert design gallery; Dutch practice MVRDV are working on an athletic centre and theatre; Mecanoo are behind a complex of three cultural centres and a book mall; KSP are designing a new art museum and library; and Urbanus are finalising a neighbourhood sports and cultural centre.

Meanwhile, the Coop Himmelb(l)au-designed Museum of Contemporary Art and Planning Exhibition (MOCAPE) opened last year and a competition is underway for yet another library, arts centre and theatre in the district of district of Bao’an.

You can read more about the rapid cultural development in Shenzhen in this recent CLADmag feature.