Aurecon and Gensler Architects have celebrated the completion of the design on the façade of what will be China’s tallest building – the 632 metre-tall Shanghai Centre, located in Shanghai’s Lujiazui Financial Centre, beside the JinMao Tower and World Financial Tower. The building will be more than 100 metres taller than the recently completed Shanghai Financial Centre and is designed as a sustainable eco-tower.
It boasts a new ‘intelligent skin’, setting a new benchmark in tall building façade design.
Aurecon’s façade engineers, with Gensler, developed the design to marry the façade with the structure and services systems while, at the same time, achieving architectural and sustainable goals. The twisted feature of the tower is an innovative upward spiralling design that reduces wind loads and captures rainwater which can be used for the building’s air conditioning and central heating.
The building is comprised of a circular central floor plate enveloped by a suspended outer skin triangular in plan, which twists as it ascends. The interstitial spaces between the form are used to create 12 storey atria that act as environmental buffer zones. These ‘sky gardens’ will provide a place to meet, eat and shop, cutting down the time people need to travel on elevators. Aurecon has also undertaken extensive building science and geometric analyses to help resolve the complex issues arising in design.
Aurecon was briefed for a façade design that achieves low energy and low carbon in operation and included an integrated renewables strategy.
Sustainable green features have included the project development targeting the criteria set down by LEED-NC Rating System and Chinese 3 Star Green Building Rating and Certification System. ■
