Beijing-based real estate developer Pan Shiyi will invest six billion yuan (HK$5.63 billion) in a property project designed by Zaha Hadid - a leading avant-garde architect - in the southeast of the city.
The one-million-square-metre project, named Soho (Small Office, Home Office) Town, is Pan's largest project since he started his first development in Hainan in 1995.
Phase one of Soho Town will be completed by the end of next year or in early 2006 and all four phases would be completed by 2010, Pan said in an interview with The Standard yesterday.
Start-up costs would be around one billion yuan, which would be funded entirely by his company, Soho China, Pan said. Most flats in Soho Town would occupy around 120-180 square metres, with the largest at 400 square metres.
The design of Soho Town was finalised on Thursday, Pan said, adding that some senior management of Soho China did not like it because it involved lots of curved shapes. To fit the curved walls, the company would order special furniture from Dongguan.
Building costs were expected to be 20 per cent more than for ordinary apartment buildings because of the design.
Zaha Hadid was born in Baghdad in 1950. She gained wide recognition in 1983, with a winning entry for The Peak Club, Hong Kong.
She recently won the tender to design the Guangzhou opera theatre.
Pan said his notion of "Small Office Home Office" was inspired by a United States petroleum team which, while working on mainland oilfields in 1985, installed a large computer and a printer in their vehicle while driving and working.
"What state-of-the-art things they were," Pan recalled. He plans that his Beijing development will be the same - state of the art.
