The Chicago-based architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill has been awarded a contract to design a redevelopment of a 2km stretch of central Nanjing’s Yangtze riverfront.

The firm said the plan is to create a Nanjing Xiaguan Riverfront area of new neighbourhoods, shopping districts and skyscrapers that will provide a ‘striking new identity for Nanjing and create a world-class mixed-use cityscape for its people’.

Phase one of the project involves revitalising the Dama Road and Tianbaoli areas in a way that reconnects the city and its people to the Yangtze River. The Dama Road district will be the centre of the city’s nightlife, and its renovated colonial-era buildings will house galleries and boutique shops.