Wuhan, China

Led by Qin Pang, Wei Tang, Xianbin Ni and a team at Benoy’s Shanghai Studio have revealed their winning competition plans for Alibaba’s new Central China Headquarters.

The site is located in the Xudong business district, the core area in the inner ring in Wuhan. It covers a total area of 44,654 square meters.

The northeast and southeast adjoin the two main roads in the city, Xudong Street (Wuhan Avenue) and Youyi Avenue, linking both sides of the Yangtze River and other urban transportation hubs.

The general floor area of the above-ground construction of the project is about 300,000 square meters. There will be two eco office towers which are 280 meters and 190 meters in height respectively, with a total GFA of 210,000 square meters, and a new retail commercial hub, covering an area of 90,000 square meters.

The project aims to implement Alibaba’s concept of building a hybrid digital ecosystem and to enhance Alibaba’s presence in the central region of China by driving the transformation of its brick-and-mortar businesses.

Alibaba’s Central China Headquarters and Industrial Complex will feature the Group’s enhanced operational model, introducing a new business ecology for core enterprises and innovative business models for retail.

Based on in-depth research of Alibaba’s corporate culture and the interaction between offices and businesses, Benoy formulated the AliCampus concept.

Endowing traditional commercial land use with new functionalities, Benoy put forward new creative areas such as Challenge Avenue, Ideation Space, Resilience Space and Healing Corne for the younger demographic, and to inject new energy into the city which traditionally employed vague demarcations in town planning.

Pang also interwove, nested and reconstructed these space units by applying the concept of a Kongming lock, a traditional Chinese wooden puzzle, into the structure.

The interaction of offices and businesses in the Alibaba hub exemplifies a complex horizontal lock.

Drawing on the specific urban conditions and new business requirements of technology companies, we combined the spatial needs of both B2B and B2C enterprises to form a varied and dynamic public space that allows components to interweave and interact with each other.

By defining and utilizing the grey zones and activating dormant areas between business spaces, the architects created in AliCampus an intelligent, unique urban vision for the city.

“We realized early on that closely collaborating with Alibaba, whose ecological chain is increasingly maturing, is an opportunity to break the homogenization of integrated development projects in the city,” states Qin Pang, Benoy Director, Head of Shanghai Studio.

“We sought solutions to respond to the harsh conditions of the building foundation, combining the closely-linked operational supply chains of Alibaba by utilizing big data instead of merely experience to tailor to the future needs of stakeholders.”

Architects: Benoy
Design Team: Qin Pang, Wei Tang, Xianbin Ni, Chengsheng Jiang, Chong Yu, Jianying Liu, Shu ia, Jiacheng Ying, Xing Liang, Yiting Zhou, Xiaoli Zhou
Client: Alibaba Group