[ Morphosis ] Giant Group Campus_In Progress

Morphosis Architects is currently completing a massive project in Shanghai: The Headquarters and offices for Giant Group, including residence for the chairman & all Giant Group employees, hotel, training center and clubhouse, with a total of 258,300 sqf (23,996 sqm).

Thom Mayne’s architecture has pushed building techniques in order to take his organics form to reality, and I think that the best way to understand his projects is not through renders or even drawings, but by watching the structure and the construction progress.

The Giant Campus project is a compact village that accommodates diverse functions in a flexible framework of forms that move in and out of a folded landscape plane. Situated amid existing canals and a new man made lake, the undulating office building interacts with an augmented ground plane, joining architecture to landscape and environment to site. The East Campus office building contains three zones: open, non-hierarchical office space; private offices, and executive suites, which cantilever dramatically over the lake. Additional program is integrated into the lifted landscape, including a library, an auditorium, an exhibition space, and a café on the east campus. On the West Campus, additional program space-submerged below an expansive, undulating green roof- includes a pool, a multi-purpose sports court, and additional relaxation and fitness spaces for employees. The landform culminates to the west at a company guest hotel where glass-floored private bedroom suites project over a wildlife pond.

Several plazas, carved from the landscape, provide outdoor break and recreational spaces for employees. At the south edge of the campus, a pedestrian plaza steps down to the water’s edge in a continuous outdoor walkway that provides pedestrian access to the lake. The main circulation spine, an enclosed walkway located outboard of the office building, bridges over the street connecting the east and west campuses.

A range of features on the project maximize both energy efficiency and occupant comfort. The West Campus’s landscaped green roof provides thermal mass that limits the heat gain and reduces cooling expenditures. The façade’s double skin and insulated glass curtain wall minimize solar heat gain and improve overall efficiency. The central circulation spine, along with the recreational amenities and plazas provide opportunities for chance encounters and places for employees to gather without the confines of cubicles or unnecessary divisions. The narrow profile of the office building combined with a system of skylights ensure that employees have continuous access to natural daylight.

After the break drawings and several photos during the construction phase of this almost completed project in China:

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from  archdaily