Morphosis unveiled their proposal for the Shenzhen Four Towers in One Competition. The competition (which Steven Holl Architects ultimately won). This competition was for an office tower complex around the new Shenzhen Stock Exchange Headquarters located in Shenzhen’s Futian commercial business district. It was organized by the Shenzhen Planning Bureau to create a unified urban plan, around the Headquarters, for the new office towers of Shenzhen Media Group, China Construction Bank, China Insurance Group, and Southern & Bosera Funds.
“In response to the interconnectedness of the new global city, Four Towers in One re-conceives the conventional urban grid as a dynamic, multi-dimensional organization, or armature, able to support the complex systems that define contemporary urban life. Like the complex yet coherent intricacy of a traditional Chinese puzzle, each site is conceived as a 3-dimensional envelope, interwoven with the other projects, rather than as a 2-dimensional isolated footprint.”
The well-established strategy of transferring air rights allows the zoning envelope for each building site to evolve beyond a simple vertical extrusion of the site’s footprint, to facilitate a network of interlocking forms reminiscent of the venerated Chinese puzzle. The scheme questions the appropriateness of creating a field of disassociated vertical skyscrapers on the site, in favor of creating a cohesive, interwoven district. The tower—conventionally thought of as an isolated, autonomous object—is now rooted in a new urban fabric, interwoven with fluid built forms and vibrant civic spaces. Rather than considering each individual tower as its own discrete icon, the scheme conceives the entire Financial District as a new type of icon—a district with its own unique character amidst the greater city of Shenzhen—that will be recognized the world over. Extending the primary metaphor of the Chinese puzzle, each individual project maintains its distinct form and identity while integrating with the other elements of the project. The result is a holistic scheme that is greater than the sum of its parts—where integration and collaboration create enormous pragmatic and symbolic potential for all stakeholders.
© Morphosis
