Jaeger Kahlen Partners (JKP) has completed Guangfa Securities Headquarters in Guangzhou, China. The 308-meter tall super high rise, located in the Zhujiang New Town district, is part of a new business hub for the city and integrates several sustainable features. The tower engages the surrounding cultural context while creating a distinctive form on the skyline that establishes a robust presence for Guangfa in the city. It offers state-of-the-art office environments for a global leader in finance and creates a new business hub.
By rotating the skyscraper off the urban axis and tapering the facade, the design distinguishes itself from its surroundings while creating a sheltered gathering area at the base. An expansive landscape of trees and water features separates the tower from a bus terminal, as well as from the nearby residential area, to mitigate noise. The off-axis siting also maximizes views of the park while minimizing the shadows that the building casts over it.
The design articulates the tower into three key zones: a soaring entrance lobby that improves connectivity with the surroundings, a sky lobby that offers a communal lounge, and enhances vertical circulation. At the top, the crown reinterprets traditional Chinese roof design in a contemporary architectural language.
An innovative structural approach - combining a steel-frame reinforced core and an outrigger system - maximizes spatial efficiency and create highly flexible office environments. By transferring the shear load to the building's core, the outrigger system allows the building's eight columns to be remarkably thin. The outrigger structure also eliminates the need for columns at the corners of the plan, resulting in open and flexible spaces that take full advantage of the double-sided exposure and offer unobstructed views over the surroundings.
A sky lobby minimizes the size of the core by allowing for efficient elevator stacking. This reduced core lets the tower to take its slender and elegant proportions, resulting in more efficient floorplates that maximize daylighting throughout the office environments. By tapering the above floorplates away from the facade, the design creates a quadruple-height area at the perimeter of the sky lobby that maximizes views without substantially reducing usable floor space.
The design also supports the well-being of the employees that work there. Convenience stairs create vertical connections and encourage employees to walk between floors rather than take the elevator. An amenity space tops the building, offering a public zone where employees can relax, socialize, exercise, and collaborate informally. Throughout, the floorplans are designed to maximize natural light while creating open, comfortable, and spacious office environments.
Photography: Wenrui Ye