Platinum Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2021
Guangming Public Service Platform
- A' Design Award 2021 Platinum Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2021
- CLIENT: Zhubo Design
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 225,954
- Verification code 84194143B8 · Verify this award
About Guangming Public Service Platform
Guangming Public Service is a government office and public service building in Shenzhen, China. The building is divided into two blocks with distinct forms. The upper rectangular volume contains offices, while the lower block holds a public service hall with an undulating roof shaped like a mountain range. Two small hills on the site are preserved, which reduces excavation and extends the surrounding green landscape. The plan avoids the enclosed layout that is common in Chinese government buildings. The design follows a green development mode with low impact.
Emerging from contemporary discourse on civic architecture's role in fostering community vitality, Zhubo Design CO., LTD.'s Guangming Public Service Platform exemplifies the thoughtful integration of monumental public building and activated landscape that characterizes progressive approaches to institutional design in the twenty-first century. The structure's commanding presence, achieved through its distinctive dual-volume composition clad in sophisticated glass curtain wall systems, establishes an architectural landmark while its dramatically cantilevered ground-level canopy creates a gestural invitation toward the generous public plaza extending before it. The landscape design demonstrates remarkable sophistication in its synthesis of formal geometric organization and organic naturalistic expression, with decorative lawn patterns featuring flowing serpentine forms rendered in contrasting grass species that suggest both traditional garden art and contemporary land art practices. The building's siting within a broader urban matrix reveals careful consideration of axial relationships, with the primary boulevard creating a visual corridor that draws the eye toward distant mountain silhouettes, connecting civic space to natural horizon in a manner recalling classical landscape garden traditions. Technical accomplishment manifests in the seamless integration of building systems with landscape infrastructure, the rhythm of circular planters and linear pathways creating processional sequences that mediate between vehicular approaches and pedestrian experience. The atmospheric conditions captured in this aerial perspective, with their soft diffused light and gradual dissolution of distant urban fabric into mountainous terrain, lend the composition a contemplative quality that invites reflection on architecture's capacity to shape meaningful public realm. One might consider how the interplay of transparent architectural surfaces and verdant landscape elements proposes a vision of civic life where built environment and natural systems exist in productive dialogue.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The designer didn't just say no to "Taishi Chair" form but took a more indirect, flexibleway. There are 2 small hills about 30m high and the plot was full of piles of earth dumped from surrounding construction sites, leaving little space for dumped earth for the project. Based on the site conditions, the designer proposed to preserve the 2 hills, whichcanreduce the excavation work while also helping form a group of green hills that extend to the Niu Mountain on the north side of the plot.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Total land area: 29,013.71 sqm
Gross floor area: 81,198.86 sqm
Floor area ratio: 2.17
Height: 53.3 m
Floors: 11 (10 above the ground and 1 underground) - Tags
- Public service platform, government building, Zhubo Design,mix use building, office spaces
- Production Technology
- The project has following structural features:
1. The structure system uses the shear wall structure that is transformed from the combination of diagonal strut andtruss. The span reaches 42.5 m.
2. There are overhangs floor by floor above the transitional floor. The longest one is 12.6 m, supported by inclined columns.
3. The first floor above the ground has an undulating surface while at the middle of standard floors are some openings at the facade. - Design Challenge
- There were three challenges confronted by the design team:
1. The span of openings at the middle part is so large that the construction is difficult.
2. The arrangement of steel beams conforms to the changes of undulating of curved roof. Thus, the drawings and construction must be accurate.
3. The curtain wall of facade adopts triangle perforated panel with an optimized size. Realizing a continuous curved surface made from triangle panels needs high-level abilities of construction and geometry optimization experience in design stage. - Project Duration
- 2013-2019
Shenzhen City, China - Operation Flow
- Considering that the planning of Guangming Districtemphasizes a green city development mode with low impact, the designer suggested that the buildingset an example to implement the concept.
The design team divided the building into 2blocks with distinct forms at vertical level. The upper rectangular volume is office, while the lower block functions as a public service hall, whose rooftop is shaped like anundulating "mountain range".The flexible curved plane of the "mountain"creates a relaxing atmosphere. - Research
- The solution not only solved practical problems but also responded to the low-impact development mode advocated by the District. Fortunately, the authority eventually agreed to preserve the southern hill, so that a "Taishi chair" layout featuring enclosures on three sides would be impossible for this project.
- Inspiration
- Taishi Chair-like layout (three sides enclosed, south side open) is very common among Chinese government buildings, and was also requested in the project's design brief. Even so, the designer intended to break the conservative Taishi Chair-like spatial pattern, with a view to bringing a new image and injecting vitality into the government architecture.
- Image Credits
- Xia Zhi