Zaha Hadid Architects To Build Tower C At Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base, China

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) was announced as the winner of the design competition to build Tower C at Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base.

Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base will be an important business and financial center in Shenzhen serving the Greater Bay Area of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau; integrating clusters of corporate headquarters within a global technology hub accommodating 300,000 employees each day. Including venues for international conferences, exhibitions, cultural and art programs, the headquarters base will incorporate residential developments, a transportation center, botanical grasslands, and a coastal zone with wetlands.

Tower C by Zaha Hadid Architects within the Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base responds to its location at the intersection of the city’s planned north-south green axis and Shenzhen’s east-west urban corridor. Connecting directly with its adjacent park and plazas which transform into a terraced landscape extending upwards within its two towers, the design invites the public into the heart of the building where cultural and leisure attractions are housed in sweeping bridges that tie the towers together and give panoramic views of the city.

Served by the expanding Shenzhen Metro network, Tower C’s stepped podium integrates with the park to create a new public space for this dynamic city that has grown to become a global center of technology innovation. Uniting the park’s landscapes with the civic plazas of the tower’s lower levels provides direct pedestrian access and daylight to the public transport interchange below ground. Prioritizing pedestrians, the tower’s design also includes extensive bicycle parking and charging facilities.

Informed by 3D modeling tools developed by ZHA that optimize efficiencies in architectural massing, orientation and facade-to-floor ratios, Tower C’s design is a multi-dimensional vertical city of two towers at nearly 400m, providing column-free naturally-lit office space, shopping, entertainment, and dining amenities, together with a hotel, convention center and cultural facilities with exhibition galleries.

The double-insulated, unitized glass curtain wall of Tower C’s design steps the glazing as vertical channels for self-shading and incorporates ventilating registers within the channels that draw outside air through operable cavities; providing natural and hybrid ventilation with very effective environmental control for each floor.
Connected with the district’s smart management systems that continually monitor external and interior conditions, indoor environmental controls will adjust in real-time to reduce energy consumption with high-efficiency equipment and chiller plant optimization within the district’s central networks. The design will also incorporate water-collection and recycling as well as photovoltaics to harvest solar energy for the district.