Climate and energy-saving
The SZMG Tower is located at the central Fudian District of Shenzhen and an extension to the existing SZMG Building on its immediate south. A public plaza is created between the two buildings. In designing the SZMG Tower, we conceptualized a skyscraper specifically for the Ling Nan region (the southernmost region in China) – where the city of Shenzhen is located – with a climate characterized by hot and humid air all year round with excessive sunlight. The conventional glass curtain wall was thus not considered to avoid light pollution and reduce heat island effect, and a sun-shading system would be crucial. We designed a 600mm in depth, comprehensive sun-shading grid on the building’s façades, with width of the horizontal components varying between 1.5m at bottom of the podium to 0.3m on top of the tower. Unleashing view gradually with the increasing height while creating a unique and strong elevational rhythm. The result is some 40% glass reduction from a conventional curtain wall system, which in turn makes the building into a more environmentally friendly work place.
Space and urbanity
The office tower has an efficient rectangular plan with the four corners open up for column-free sight. Two multi-storey courtyards, altogether with the roof gardens on top of the podium building, provide the users with multiple green spaces to relax, meet, and work from outside – all in extraordinary views. Colonnade that wraps around the SZMG Tower’s first two levels echo the traditional practice of Qilou (Colonnade sidewalk that are commonly found in the Ling Nan region) to protect the pedestrians from excessive sunlight and storms while initiating interaction between the office tower and its surrounding neighborhoods. An over-spanned plaza stands in the middle of the colonnade provides a covered space of some 1400 square meters for public gathering.
Skyscraper and regionalism
How could a modern skyscraper incorporate with regionality? A question we kept asking ourselves during the design process. The regional hot and rainy weathers have never stopped people from embracing the outside environment – and embracing life as a whole. Instead, the climate-related-obstacles have been tackled through the language of architecture – from colonnades, canopied spaces and courtyards, to the application of sun-shading systems – in often low-carbon consumption ways. These measures not only catalyzed the formation of a local building style but also induced a Ling Nan lifestyle. In a sense, our job here in Shenzhen is to introduce a high-rise working environment that conforms with this lifestyle in a contemporary and coherent way, an environment that is open, green, and vibrant.