City Above the Clouds Multifunctional Office by Gad Is Granted the Golden A' Design Award in Architecture, Building and Structure Design

Gad honored for architecture, building and structure design by the international grand jury of the 2021 - 2022 A' Design Award & Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COMO, Italy, April 22, 2022 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has confirmed the Golden A' Design Award in the Architecture, Building and Structure Design category for City Above the Clouds Multifunctional Office by Gad, designed for Hangzhou Xihu Investment&Greentown Real Estate CO.,Ltd. The award was conferred within the 2021 - 2022 A' Design Award & Competition and was determined through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who assessed anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.

About the Golden A' Design Award

The Gold A' Design Award is granted to designs that demonstrate a high level of innovation and a significant impact on their intended audience. Recognized as a major achievement by the A' Design Awards, these designs are characterized by their visionary approach and the exceptional skill of their creators. Winners of the Gold A' Design Award are noted for their ability to push the envelope in art, science, design, and technology, delivering solutions that not only meet but exceed expectations. These designs serve as benchmarks for excellence, encouraging further innovation and inspiring future generations of designers.

More About City Above the Clouds Multifunctional Office

City Above the Clouds is a mixed-use office and commercial complex in Hangzhou. Four main buildings are stacked on two-storey circular commercial podiums, and the arrangement forms a central green park. The ground level has several entrances that connect the complex to the surrounding city. Glass curtain walls give the facades a calm and open appearance. A vertical greening system links shared spaces on different levels. The combination of work areas, shops and social spaces supports a balanced way of working and living.

Award Record

Gad is a winner of 1 A' Design Award, including this recognition.

About the A' Architecture, Building and Structure Design Award

The A' Architecture Design Award is an international architectural design competition recognizing good architectural designs by best architects worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to architectural design studios, building contractors, structural engineering firms and architecture and design consultants from all countries. Typical entries include skyscrapers, museums, residential buildings, commercial complexes, educational institutions and religious structures. The awarded architectural projects are published at https://designers.org/design-category/architecture

About A' Design Award & Competition

Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com

Press Resources

Winner Page: https://designers.org/130944
A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/130944
Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!130944
Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/311363
Further Information from the Laureate: http://www.gad.com.cn/

Media Contact

Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953

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Fact Sheet

The Work

Project: City Above the Clouds Multifunctional Office
Function: Multifunctional Office
Category: Architecture, Building and Structure Design
Discipline: Spatial Design
Industry: Architecture
Colors: Dark Gray, Light Slate Gray, Slate Gray, Dark Slate Gray and Dim Gray
Images: 5
Client: Hangzhou Xihu Investment&Greentown Real Estate CO.,Ltd

The Recognition

Laureate: Gad
Country: China
Recognition: Golden A' Design Award
Edition: 2021 - 2022
Design ID: #130944

Credits

Team: Zhang Wei, He Zhen and Wu Xiaodong, Zheng Weijian
Image Credits: Main Image:Photographer©YAOLI STUDIO 2021(Southwest corner perspective view); Photographer©YAOLI STUDIO 2021(Perspective view along XiYuan Seven Road); Photographer©YAOLI STUDIO 2021(Aerial view); Photographer©YAOLI STUDIO 2021(Courtyard perspective view); Photographer©YAOLI STUDIO 2021(Courtyard elevation view)

Design Details

Unique Properties: The project is located in Hangzhou. It adopts the conceptual planning system with the theme of City Above The Clouds. Four main buildings are stacked on double-storey circular commercial podium buildings respectively to form a central green park. The commercial space on the first floor has multiple entrances connected to the city, creating a vibrant, three-dimensional and open ideal city. The architects integrated the natural environment, hence creating the ideal town for the future.
Inspiration: Inspired by key words such as ideal city and future community, the architects created a futurist architectural form that focuses on openness, cooperation and sharing. The thoughts of architects is balance life and work. Attract the youth from online to offline to communicate with others and embrace nature, and provide a community living space. From the combination of office and commercial businesses to the sharing of production resources, creating a new way of working and living is what we need.
Research: Through information collection, field research and on-site interviews in the early stage of design, we found the project is close to Zhangzhou-Changzhou Expressway so that it plays an important role in displaying the city image. The surroundings of the site are mainly industrial parks from 1990s and there’ s no large- scale and intensive green space. Building functions are also unitary and fragmented. Unfortunately, with the advancements of Internet, young people prefer online connections to real communications in actual life scenes and spend remarkably less time in the nature. Overall, it’ s a pretty closed environment in lack of urban vitality.
Challenge: One of the biggest challenges of the project, on one hand, is that many life scenes and functions, especially social sharing spaces, can not be all placed in the horizontal plane due to site limitations. To solve this problem, the architects used a vertical greening system to connect multiple scenes and functions. On the other hand, it is also challenging to bring natural sunlight to the 60-meter-high atrium. The architects worked closely with the structure engineers and curtain wall designers to deliberate on the structure and curtain wall components.
Realization and Technology: This design is highly practical, to which an indispensable part is the technical support and selection of materials. The glass used for the building facade is a result of careful comparison and screening for over a year with the developer’ s kind support. With curtain wall, large area of glass looks sophisticated, bringing an overall humble feeling to the buildings, further integrating them into the city.
Operation and Interaction: The architects initially aimed to create a futuristic form of architecture and at the same time to meet people’ s daily work and life needs, and therefore adopted a new approach of combination of buildings. Basically the buildings conform to the site property line and surround the courtyard inside. The main opening is at the southwest corner to face the city, and some smaller openings at other corners are where the complex breathes.
Project Duration and Location: The project started in 8 October 2017 in HangZhou, ZheJiang, and finished in 20 December 2020
Specifications: The scale of buildings is human-based. People’ s movements and feelings in the architectural space are taken into consideration. The design includes different scales of space from large, medium to small. There are public, open and shared spaces, such as the courtyard formed by 60-meter-high buildings, some 6x6m platforms for communication and exchange; there are also customized apartments to provide individual and private spaces for different groups of people.
Keywords: Future, Life, Scene, Share, Social