The Times Hub · Chongqing Eye

The Eye of Chongqing is the studio's first built transit-oriented development, offering a chance to reconsider the role TOD should play in a city. Chongqing West Station, the largest high-speed railway hub in southwest China, opened in 2018 and connects four high-speed lines to western China. While transport conditions are excellent, its TOD potential is unrealized: the public areas have fast circulation but suffer the common affliction of Chinese high-speed stations, enormous evacuation plazas without shaded tree space and weak local identity. The design treats landscape as the organizer of public space, seeking a shared landscape system for travelers, office workers, and nearby residents. The master plan unfolds from the station front plaza to the north and south, combining offices, commerce, apartments, hotels, and parks into a complete urban living system. Recognizing two demands, efficient arrival and slow living, the design creates a hub where fast and slow time coexist. The front plaza anchors a 120-meter east-west urban corridor for rapid access to the station and a 20-meter north-south commercial corridor, with secondary routes emphasized as green islands lined by specimen and avenue trees. The north and south blocks introduce paths of 7, 5, and 3 meters that slow visitors down, with straight paved lines differentiating fast routes from leisure places and autumn-leaf, cherry, and shaded corridors for immersive walking. The life scenes range from shaded pockets and cooling mist for waiting travelers to interactive waterscapes, outdoor furniture, and shaded commercial streets, office courtyards themed around natural stones and falling cherry blossoms, and tiered gardens with hotel-style entrances for apartments. Chongqing's city flower, the camellia, becomes the design language: two large blooming camellias on the front plaza guide fast flow, while at smaller scales the flower decomposes into petals that slow visitors. The pilot area includes Time Plaza with a Silhouette Screen, zelkova corridors, and a Time water feature whose intaglio city silhouettes mark the eight rail routes; Flower Forest Plaza with petal seats and Yoshino cherries; and the tranquil Flowing Water Garden with mirror pools, wave-textured stone, and soft seating.