Gold Lighting Products and Fixtures Design · 2021
Vanke Cloud City Complex Building
by SZ MATT Lighting Design Co., Ltd
- A' Design Award 2021 Gold Winner in Lighting Products and Fixtures Design
- Awarded April 15, 2021
- CLIENT: MATT Lighting Design & Consulting CO., LTD.
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 49,016
- Verification code EE2B614985 · Verify this award
About Vanke Cloud City Complex Building
Vanke Cloud City is an architectural lighting design for a large mixed-use complex in Shenzhen. The lighting emphasizes the skyline and the four corners of the complex. A super high-rise building of 280.8 meters forms the core, enclosed by lower volumes in a layered composition. The light of each building follows its use and its architectural character. More than 97 percent of the fixtures are LED, and an intelligent control system adjusts the light by time and mode. During the main months of bird migration, the decorative lights are switched off at 10 pm.
SZ MATT Lighting Design Co., Ltd's Vanke Cloud City Complex Building emerges as a distinguished exemplar of contemporary architectural illumination practice, demonstrating how thoughtfully conceived lighting design transforms built form into nocturnal sculptural presence while establishing meaningful dialogue with the surrounding urban fabric. The work positions itself within the evolving tradition of facade illumination that moves beyond mere commercial announcement toward genuine architectural enhancement, where light becomes a medium for revealing and celebrating the inherent qualities of architectural massing, material, and detail. The technical achievement manifests through the sophisticated integration of linear LED elements within the vertical fin system, creating the compelling visual effect of luminous waterfalls cascading between the building's distinctive stepped terraces, a treatment that honors the ziggurat-inspired profile by emphasizing its rhythmic horizontal progression while simultaneously drawing the eye upward through continuous vertical channels of warm golden light. The chromatic strategy reveals particular accomplishment in the complementary relationship established between the approximately 2700K warm illumination and the cool teal glazing, generating optical vibration that animates the facade with dynamic energy while maintaining chromatic unity across the composition. The terraced massing receives careful attention through horizontal accent lighting that delineates each setback, creating legible architectural rhythm against the deepening twilight sky captured in this image at the evocative threshold between day and night. One might observe how the crown treatment, where twin peaked elements receive concentrated illumination, establishes the building as a recognizable landmark within the metropolitan skyline, a beacon that anchors orientation while contributing aesthetic value to the collective nocturnal environment. The work invites contemplation of how architectural lighting, when conceived with artistic intention and technical precision, elevates the urban night experience from mere functional visibility toward genuine visual enrichment, transforming buildings into contributors to shared public beauty. What qualities of light most profoundly shape our experience of urban space after dark?
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- As the light of city-scale buildings, its main logical design language is to stand out the skyline and four corners of CLOUD CITY, reflecting the overall logic at a macro level of visual effects. Based on that, the lighting design pays attention to the business type of each building and expresses its architectural characteristics accordingly. In this project, the designers highlighted the super high-rise building and created a layered design with a core building enclosed by other parts.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The Vanke Cloud City project covers an area of 394,000 square meters, with a construction area of 1,335,500 square meters. The total height of super high-rise buildings is 280.8 meters.
- Tags
- Lighting design, Vanke, Commercial complex, MATT Lighting Design, Energy saving and environmental protection
- Production Technology
- 1.In terms of energy saving, the use of LED lamps in the building exceeds 97%. And the intelligent control system is applied to control the light by time and mode, such as weekday mode and late night mode.
2.Strict demands of lighting distribution. For example, the width of irradiation should be less than 0.35 m if the 2.5-meter-high window frame is only 0.35 m wide. 4. No influence on the interior environment. For example, there is no dazzle in the distance 0.3 m or more from lamps - Design Challenge
- The hardest parts were the design and completion. As the project occupies a large area, and has various types of buildings, long construction period of 5 years and over 20 design parties, it requires a great deal of communication, follow-up and changes. In order to create a city-scale lighting project, the designers closely supervised the construction process of each building, made sure every node completed perfectly and solved problems in time.
- Project Duration
- Timetable: 2015-2019
Location: Nanshan District, Shenzhen - Operation Flow
- The project is one of 6 plots in Liuxiandong headquarters base. It is a project exclusively invested by Vanke. Moreover, it's the biggest urban mix-used project of Vanke in China’s first-tier cities to date.
When it comes to a small-scale urban comprehensive project that is coming forth, the first thing to be taken into account should be its potential contributions to the region and city.
The project follows a people-oriented design that starts with the aspects of visual effects and experience. - Research
- It was concluded that Shenzhen is on one of the main migration routines, and at one of the three migration belts of migratory birds in China. Every year, more than 180 types of migratory birds pass by Liuxiandong area. As for environmental protection, lights of the entire project would be turned off at 10pm, except for the functional lights, during the main months of bird migration and the time from midnight to early morning, which benefits for the bird migration.
- Inspiration
- Liuxiandong headquarters base functions as one of the major forces to propel Shenzhen's technology and also one of the 6 headquarter bases in Shenzhen for driving the development of strategic emerging industries. Moreover, it is home to clusters of emerging industries and a new platform for industrial transformation and upgrading. The base is planned as a new industrial park, as well as a platform for Nanshan district or even Shenzhen to lead the high-end development of the industry in future.
- Image Credits
- Zhu Zhenghui