Zhangrun Office Buildings

Design of High-rise buildings often brings up questions about the relationship between “Tower” and “Podium”. This pre-conceived classification comes from their obvious difference in height. Zhangrun Office Buildings is located in Zhangjiang High-tech Park, Shanghai. Besides 42,000-square-meter research and development office, the project also houses 1,500-square-meter commercial facilities. In this project, we tried to change the typical Form-type of tower and podium to improve customer experience and bring extra value to the client. We avoided designing a podium to house the commercial facilities like many other typical office projects. On the contrary, we separate the office tower and the commercial facility. Standing independently, the commercial building can offer a spatial experience that is different and complementary to that of the office tower. Therefore, the square site is quartered, and two office towers sit at the north-east and the south-west corner and semi-enclose the other two corners. The south-east corner is unoccupied and serves as a public green space, and the north-west corner is occupied by the commercial courtyard. We kept the facades of the commercial courtyard in consistency with that of the office towers, and designed them as translucent walls. This harmonizes the outlook of the two-story commercial building with that of the office towers. In the commercial courtyard, convenient stores, coffee shops, joint offices and gyms occupy the “boxes” on the ground floor and the “cottages” on the first floor. With the bamboo courtyards and wooden terraces, the commercial courtyard boasts its friendly scale and natural environment and creates a complementary and balanced relationship with the office towers. Leaded by the notion of technology innovation and healthy life, people are experiencing ever-changing working life, social communication and environmental relationship, which will definitely provoke new urban and architectural Form-type. Zhangrun Office Buildings is a step taken in this process of upgrading.