The world’s leading female architect, Zaha Hadid, has become the latest target in design piracy as media reports suggest that one of her projects under construction in China has been replicated by another practice elsewhere in the country.

Hadid’s classically-sculptural Wangjing Soho scheme is to act as a modern gateway to Beijing, its rounded masses welcoming visitors to the bustling hubbub. Unfortunately however, Der Spiegel reports that another studio is constructing a pirated design in Chongqing which may be completed before Hadid’s original.

Satoshio Ohashi, Project Director for Hadid’s scheme, told Der Spiegel: “It is possible that the Chongqing pirates got hold of some digital files or renderings of the project.”

More to come in this week’s issue of News Review on 8 January 2013.