Chengdu Gaoxin Innovation and Cooperation Center

Vanke Chengdu Gaoxin Chuanghe Center is a nearly 150,000-square-meter mixed-use complex of retail, office, service apartments, and housing, designed by LLA / Laguarda.Low Architects with landscape by Zhilan Landscape for client Vanke Chengdu. Located in the core Dayuan area of Chengdu's High-Tech Zone, the project faced intense competition from surrounding homogeneous developments and a 70-meter height limit. The government's detailed urban design guidelines had standardized block forms, producing severe monotony; continuing the surrounding typology would have created awkward sightlines and denied the project a distinct identity. The breakthrough came through two enclosing arcs that break up the rigid grid, softening the streetscape and opening diagonal view corridors to surrounding blocks while creating corner entrance plazas, a lively internal courtyard, and continuous flowing paths linking all open spaces. The curved outline follows the site boundary to preserve street continuity, giving the tower a distinct yet compatible presence. Building heights step down from north to south in deference to the nearby Poly International Plaza. Two opposing crescent-shaped towers wrap around a central elliptical garden, like a pair of fish swimming in a pond, beneath a continuously shifting inclined curved roof that forms an endless spiral. The semi-open arc conveys openness, fusion, warmth, and safety, producing a rich skyline and a distinctive fifth elevation for the surrounding superblocks. To give the central garden a retreat quality while radiating vitality into retail, the landscape is sunken and directly connected to basement-level retail, with openings at all four corners linking the city to the garden. Three rays divide the courtyard, and arc volumes at different elevations create elevated green platforms and semi-open rooftop terraces that carry nature from ground to sky, reducing the mass's oppressive feel and enhancing urban interaction. The curved curtain wall was a technical and economic challenge: most curved glazing is assembled from standard vertical panels, with non-standard units under one percent of the total; corner glass is simplified to single-curvature panes unified by mullion adjustments. Fully ultra-clear glass gives the project a metropolitan business character. The building's mission, the architects argue, is to elevate urban quality, energize daily life, and enhance investment value by boldly questioning inherited conditions and innovating within a humanist discipline.