RSHP wins commercial tower in Shenzhen

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners with AUBE Conception have won the design competition for the Qianhai Financial Holdings Headquarter Tower, a mixed-use commercial high-rise in the centre of the Qianhai district, Shenzhen, China.

With a building height of 220m and clad in a metallic bronze finish, the design is punctuated by triple-height sky lobbies, a central atrium and skyline pagoda, all supported within four mega columns. Its features will introduce a striking new landmark tower to the skyline of Qianhai Bay, while on the ground, a sense of shared community will thrive within and around a powerful, classically proportioned tower and public realm.

Qianhai Financial Holdings and Century Securities will occupy the top 12 storeys as their headquarters. The remaining floors will contain commercial office space - with a typical floor area of around 2,000sqm - and 4 entrance podium floors of green wing-tiered balconies that embrace the local linear parkway.

At street level, the four mega columns allow for a 3-storey ancillary pavilion to be held aloft, creating a striking undercroft that makes way for a free-flowing public ground plane with a new park, underground retail, and connections to the metro.

Punctuating and contrasting with the tower’s order and rectilinearity, are three triple-height sky lobbies, “vertical villages”, framing views towards the mountains, bay and river. Each lobby takes a fluid, sculptural form, and is symbolically finished with a metal associated with finance that responds to the view captured with a hue of copper (river), silver (bay), or gold (mountains).

The rooftop pagoda will feature a reflective glass structure with a quadrant of giant vanes that will refract the sunlight and project gentle beams of light 6 floors down through a central atrium. At night, the same vanes will reflect the light emerging from the interior lightwell creating a landmark rooftop lantern. 

RSHP will aim to achieve LEED International Platinum rating and the construction process will largely use off-site manufacturing and modularisation, to drive up quality and drive down waste.

Li Jianfeng, General Manager of Qianhai Financial Holdings, says “This project is of great importance to Qianhai Financial Holdings and I would like to use two words: professionalism and dedication to summarize the work of the team. I’m highly impressed by their design vision and ability to reflect our ambition to create a landmark building for Qianhai.”

Ben Warner, Managing Director, RSHP Asia, says “Winning the design competition for the Qianhai Financial Holdings headquarters on the 10th anniversary of our presence in China is an important milestone for RSHP. The design reflects the brief in terms of its scale and elegance and at the same time, it has given us the opportunity to create a building of outstanding beauty and quality in Shenzhen. Whilst drawing on our core beliefs of creating accessible and green public spaces at ground level, its simple but unique and iconic form will become an iconic feature on the skyline of Qianhai.”

Ivan Harbour, Senior Partner, RSHP, says “Our proposal brings a human scale and outward-facing identity to a tall, elegant, city centre building from street to sky. Expanding on our experience, this discreet building comprises future-facing, simple, flexible workspace set alongside dynamic expressive focal spaces that, together, will serve the workplace communities within it over many years to come. The street level is given entirely over to active, accessible spaces for everyone; a commitment to the public realm that extends beyond the footprint of the building into a neighbouring park. A landmark for the Citizen and for the City.”

Simon Tonks, Senior Associate, says “The new home for Qianhai Financial Holdings and Century Securities offers a flexible and durable approach that permits an energy and fabric efficient solution. The building will be public health aware, with a naturally ventilated, breathing façade system, open plan floor spaces served by generous triple height internal and external community spaces. It anticipates the need for dynamic smart spaces in a post-pandemic era that is responsibly connected to the city it belongs to.”