Boarder Tower(s)
The design for this state-owned enterprises actively engages the space of the surrounding city to form a new civic nucleus in Zhuhai’s modern metropolis. The two towers are not conceived as autonomous objects but defined by the spaces they create around them.
Zhuhai consistently ranks as one of China’s most livable cities. However, it is increasingly dominated by isolated individual towers that favor exclusion over social connectivity. The prescribed zoning confronts the project with a dual dilemma: it splits the tower massing into two separate two instead of a homogeneous one and leaves large, bulky footprints for the resulting tower envelopes which risk overpowering the surroundings and the intimate scale of the adjacent district.
The design for the tower subtracts circular shifting from the allowable building volumes in a series of convex movements that generate urban spaces – a kind of “urban poché” that co-opts adjacent buildings and symbiotically inscribes the two towers into their context.
Vertical facades rise skywards along the adjoining roads, while a wave-like of sunshades reinforces the profile of these two towers into a homogenous one The tower volumes is further sculpted to feature a series of cantilevers and setbacks that evoke choreographed kinetic movements of the building silhouettes.
The buildings dematerialize as they reach the ground to provide a porous permeable landscape traversing the site. Leisure zones and gardens act as a connector between multiple transport hubs and establish a flow of tropical greenery and lively commercial activity, accessible to the public 24 hours a day.
At the virtual intersection between the two tower blocks, 100 meters above the city, are three levels of tropical greenery and metropolitan activity: the Sky Levels. Catapulting the public energy of the Ground Levels skywards, a signature bar and restaurant with outdoor dining terraces, an infinity edge pool, as well as business lounges and meeting rooms offer premium work and leisure space in a lush environment with spectacular elevated views of the dramatic skyline.
The development incorporates environmental strategies through passive and active energy efficient design and naturally ventilated spaces. The building’s orientation is epitomized to prevailing sun and wind angles, while the concave-convex building massing captures and channels wind flows through and across the site, fostering cool microclimate within the shaded outdoor spaces.
The “Ground Levels”, a series of open horizontal slabs, bring urban life into the building, mixing signature retail, restaurants/cafes and a food court with abundant outdoor greenery and urban streetscape. The plural trajectories weave through the open levels and offer multiple street-like experiences of interconnected urban activities, injecting public spaces into the heart of the building.
Embracing civic spaces in a symbiotic relationship with each other and thereby transforming the surrounding multivalent urban fabric, the two sculpted towers act as urban space generators.