Zhejiang, China
Designed by gad’s chief architects Wei Zhang and Yicun Song, this new 90-meter tower for Zhejiang Jinglong Real Estate redefines the city in which the building has been built.
From the point of view of the site selection in the central business district, the heart of a city usually means highly intensive development of blocks, and the surrounding greenbelts and transportation system outline an increasingly clear boundary for it.
In the face of the project land that integrates office and commercial needs, our design expected to break the solidified paradigm of closed parks, and create a lively and cordial interface for the bustling crowds based on the roots of the city.
The location of the base in the Jiaojiang Cluster of Taizhou City is really exciting.
The square block on the corner of the street has a close dialogue with the neighboring administrative, cultural and business districts.
The endless traffic flow of Shifu Avenue to the south further highlights the positioning of the Z Center as the city’s name card.
Taizhou Z Center and the super high-rise center and shopping center in diagonal form a convenient pedestrian flow path across the base.
With this hidden oblique axis, the L-shaped main building, the Nanyang Science and Technology Building on the west and the residential slabs of Yulan Plaza on the north naturally enclose to form a public and open city square.
The plane stretches open, returning the inner space to the city.
The design for the full layout of the ground floor business and even the independent business building not only takes into account the popularity of the CBD from all directions, which has certain demands for service carriers such as catering and shopping; but also recognizes that commerce is the engine of economic potential and the successful inbound marketing of square commerce can also drive the development of surrounding businesses and resonate with the pulse of the city.
The land-use conditions are particularly harsh in the city’s axis, where an inch of land values an inch of gold.
The building density was limited to 20%. Although it was a tough starting point, we turned the challenge into the unique symbol of Z Center in the process of deepening.
Based on the analysis of urban behavior patterns, the architects used a large number of cantilever and overhead techniques to provide gray space for commercial functions of the ground floor and show the echoing relationship between the square and the city.
For mixed business forms such as office and commerce, we used vertical space and height to transfer the ground capacity upwards.
According to the difference of the functional layout, the main building was rendered a distinct block-joining look.
At the same time, materials such as glass and perforated aluminum panels with similar colors were used to maintain the lightness and unity of the overall modeling language.
The 90-meter-high main slab building spreads as far as possible along the Shifu Avenue, jumping out of the surrounding buildings, and gently incorporating to the city skyline.
The Central Park is facing the south side of the project, and forms a continuous green axis of landscape with the Waterscape Park adjacent to the business district, the Civic Square and Baiyun Mountain.
The south and east sides of the L-shaped main building open up the sight corridors, and we have set up a showcase-like sky garden at the key point of the block-joining part.
It not only makes a natural division between the two functional blocks, but also weakens the sense of high-level volume.
It connects with the distant landscape from the vertical dimension of the space, and is a relatively shared communication platform.
The ground garden is intended to slow down the urban rhythm through a continuous street interface.
The amicable walking scale defines the specific sense of domain within the plot, and elements such as outdoor seating and public sculptures enhance the stability of the public space.
Project: Taizhou Z Center
Architects: gad
Design Team: Wei Zhang, Wei Zhang, Yicun Song, Kaijian Zhang, Pengfei Kang, Junyan Shao, Fengnan Zu, and Renqian Song
Client: Zhejiang Jinglong Real Estate Co., Ltd.
Photographers: Li Yao