Italian Golden Town | FIMA Architecture Design Engineering

Italian architectural style and sophistication along with Chinese traditional elements as inspiration.

The “Italian Golden Town” conceptual design and preliminary project signed by FIMA has been generated from this striking combination, a mixed-use neighborhood with shops, offices, hotel and residences to be built from this September in Zibo, Shandong province.

Shandong Gold Group, one of the country main companies in mining and real estate development, choose the proposal after a tough selection, a great acknowledgement for the design practice that currently has other ongoing projects in China, as well as in Iraq, Iran, Libya and Italy.

The project originates from the “Yaun Bao”, the Chinese traditional gold ingot once used as currency and today sign of prosperity. This shape, familiar to the local culture, generates the master plan and inspires the design of the Golden Center, a 35.000 sqm commercial center, hearth of the project it will host goldsmiths and gold themed shops, restaurants and entertainment spots.

The other main theme of the Italian Golden Town is, of course, the Italian village with its most beautiful and distinctive architectural elements, spreading from the typical Tuscan “borgo” to the characteristic Venetian “calle”, with a magnificent medieval age basilica, bell and defensive towers.

“China looks at Italian architecture with admiration – says Maurizio Andreoli, FIMA’s partner in charge – it’s essential to meet our architectural background and way of living with their culture expectations. Reproducing an Italian village abroad it’s a challenge, to succeed we concentrated our efforts in replicating the proportions, decorations and a wide variety of styles.

Made in Italy – adds Andreoli – has a driving force abroad, an Italian designer able to be competitive in these countries can be as well of interest for companies from other industries such as fashion, furniture production and craftsmanship, for this reason it’s crucial to act jointly.”

The Italian Golden Town will span over about 18 hectares and has a building surface of 235.000 sqm. It will feature an Italian commercial village, a five-star hotel with two hundred rooms, a children’s playground, a gold and jewel themed shopping mall, two office towers and two residential towers. A careful use of colors, shapes and materials will concur in achieving one of the most interesting challenges of the project: gathering contemporary buildings and Italian traditional architecture together.

All the main buildings will be built according to high energy efficiency criteria, such as roof-integrated solar panels, rainwater harvesting systems and “green” roofs, and in order to have good control over all the features of the project we carried out the whole design in BIM "Building information modeling" technology.

The Italian Golden Town is part of a larger development that involves the construction of a residential district with shopping malls, cinemas, supermarkets and public parks, serving as tourist’s attraction for citizens and travelers. The area is strategically located among the capital of Shandong, Jinan, and other major cities such as Weifang and Qingdao. A place under continuous development, in a province of 100 million inhabitants with one of the highest GDP in China, and Zibo, a the city of 6 million inhabitants that shows itself great vitality, both in investments and lifestyle evolution terms.