Shanghai, China

Simplicity, sustainability, and clarity are the main characteristics of the latest project completed by FGP Atelier and Jahn, designed for the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), the China Financial Futures Exchange (CFFEX), and the China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation (CSDCC).

 For its concept and unique design identity ,Shanghai International Financial Center has recently been awarded a 2022 International Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

The underlying attitude and challenge in the design of the Shanghai International Financial Center were to design a powerful, unified complex of memorable images while addressing the three corporations’ individual needs and providing each with an appropriate individual identity.

The beauty of the complex lies in its simplicity and logic – three buildings united in one powerful unit suitable for these beacons of finance so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The initial challenge of designing the Shanghai International Financial Center was to meet the goals of three different clients and create a unified complex.

In order to create a “vertical campus,” they followed the desire of the most prominent client to create a community and introduced a bridge that ties all the buildings together.

By connecting all of the atriums and the lobbies, inhabitants can feel they are part of one experience while allowing each separate client to maintain their autonomy.

Meanwhile, an 800-seat theater became the catalyst public space and the heart of the complex.

The primary goal was to create a series of three volumes that would serve the needs of the three financial clients that would have their headquarters within the financial center.

Early studies explored a series of diagonal volumes that would be connected by occupiable spaces at the top.

Ultimately, however, the architects arrived at a series of three essentially identical volumes linked by a volume located above the primary entrance lobbies to the buildings.

By moving the mezzanine above these lobbies and avoiding the use of a podium, the architects were able to enhance the connectivity between the street level and a large public plaza.

In addition, this enhanced the programmatic functionality of the floorplates connecting the three volumes.

This volume connecting the three towers also provides coverage over the central plaza and a portion of the large circular fountain that serves as the focus of the public space.

This space incorporates a significant amount of green space including two formal gardens in the northwest and northeast corners of the site.

Greenery is also brought into the area surrounding the central fountain.

The central fountain serves as a defining component in the strong axiality of the site that organizes the location of the three lobbies of the buildings that lie along the cardinal directions radiating from this central point of the site.

Each tower is fundamentally defined by the central entrance lobby that traverses the tower from one end to the other.

This volume is repeated on the upper floors with the central volume running until Level 26.

As each tower rises, additional multi-level volumes are introduced above the level of the volume connecting the three towers that run the height of the tower providing a balance to the central atrium volume running in the opposite direction.

The center is interrupted at Level 26, while the multi-height volume running in the central portions of the box axes of the building continues. The building culminates with a reception area on Level 31. 

The programs that the building accommodates are diverse.

They include offices, trading floor, dining rooms, and restaurants, conference centers, activity centers including sports rooms, locker rooms, reading room, retired staff activity room, psychological counseling room, clinic, public welfare foundation office, video room, nursery, exhibition space, 900-seat theater, large conference and multifunction room, and reception area.

A number of sustainable measures employed in the project have resulted in energy and cost savings.

Construction of the three towers includes a combination of a highly efficient natural ventilation envelope, under-floor air distribution, ice storage cooling and photovoltaic panels.

An advanced façade design features floor-to-ceiling glass with high-performance, low-E coating exterior mullions with automated shading. This enables a considerable reduction in air conditioning and heating loads.

The installation of large glass atriums reduces the use of artificial light. The atriums, along with pedestrian roof decks, fountains and vegetation, provide building occupants with a connection to natural elements.

Roof gardens with water collection systems and gray water from sinks and showers are used for irrigation at the plaza level and other vegetated areas in the building, resulting in the savings of more than 50 percent of potable water when compared to a typical office building.

Energy modeling shows an anticipated savings of up to 30 percent over a similar building constructed to code due to the efficiency of systems, heat recovery from the server rooms, and advanced controls.

Project: Shanghai International Financial Center
Architects: FGP Atelier
Associate Architects: Jahn
General Contractor: CSCEC
Client: Shanghai Stock Exchange
Photographers: Qingyan Zhu