Suzhou, China
Robert Whitlock from American Prize for Architecture laureates Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates with Wong Tung Group of Companies (WTIL) and East China Architectural Design and Research Institute (ECADI) completed the Suzhou International Finance Square (IFS) Tower in one of the fast-growing cities in China for The Wharf (Holdings).
The Suzhou IFS Tower, derived as a direct response to its site and context, is a modern, technological, and symbolic embodiment of Suzhou’s culture, history, and identity.
Long a center of trade in China, Suzhou is today one of the world’s fastest-growing cities.
For its inspired design, Suzhou International Finance Square has recently been awarded a 2022 International Architecture Award as well as an American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The design of Suzhou IFS Tower is inspired by a fish, a symbol of prosperity, appropriate for the city’s tallest landmark.
Known as the Venice of the East, Suzhou is surrounded by lakes and canals, and water has played a major historical role in Suzhou’s history and identity.
The building’s curved tail allows its form to transition from the nearby Jinji Lake and surrounding buildings up through the tower, which gently twists to gesture back toward the water.
At night, the building is enlivened with glowing LEDs, staggered to shimmer in the evening skyline.
Suzhou IFS Tower accommodates a mix of programs and consists of luxury serviced apartments within the lower podium annex, office space and hotel in the main tower, and hospitality and event spaces at the top.
The entire development will be accessible to the future MTR concourse.
Targeting LEED Gold certification, the Suzhou IFS Tower is clad in high-performance glazing to mitigate solar heat gain.
The building’s form and orientation, together with the articulation of the west-facing façade, diminishes much of the heat and glare while bringing more natural daylight to the internal spaces.
Most importantly, the project represents the ability of a 450-meter mixed-use tower to find a means of expression that grounds it in its local physical and cultural contexts, while advancing the typology of the super high-rise and its international precedents.
Project: Suzhou International Finance Square
Architects: Kohn Pedersen Fox PC.
Lead Architect: Robert Whitlock
Architects of Record: Wong Tung Group of Companies (WT)
Local Design Institute: East China Architectural Design and Research Institute (ECADI)
General Contractor: China Construction Third Engineering Bureau Co.
Client: The Wharf (Holdings)
Photographers: Rex Zhou and Niccolo Suzhou
