Zaha Hadid Architects has already designed some of the most innovative buildings in China, like Galaxy SOHO and the Guangzhou Opera House, and now the firm is building Shanghai’s greenest building. The project which has a strong focus on renewable energy will incorporate sustainability into the construction process and each element of its structure.
The towers will house CECEP’s headquarters as well as a number of other innovative companies. A public park links all the elements of the campus and connects it to the city beyond. The landscaping will be irrigated using rainwater harvesting, which is just one of the sustainable features of the design. Moreover, the façade and roof will be outfitted with photovoltaics, which will connect to a micro grid and battery storage.
The planned design, which was chosen from an international design competition, is set to achieve more than 90 credits in China’s Three Star Green Building Rating system. This would be the highest score ever achieved in Shanghai. The construction would take around three years to complete and is expected to begin at the end of the year.
Lastly, here’s what Michele Pasca di Magliano, ZHA project director, states about the project:
“The client brief asked for Shanghai’s greenest building and we have responded to it by putting sustainability as the foundation of our proposal. We have developed some in-house tools to study the best massing and orientation of the buildings to ensure that the passive design is extremely efficient, minimizing solar heat gain and the façade-to-floor ratios. We have also worked very carefully on a shading solution that allows views towards the river while cutting out direct solar radiation. The project’s massing has a distinct character with a series of interlocking rings which make the project identifiable from the river and the bridge. At the same time these rings allow to break down the scale of the project and bring the public realm within the elevations of the buildings with a series of sky lobbies connecting the interior and exterior spaces.”