Much more than a mixed-use tower, the Shenzhen Interchange tower, designed by
WORKac for the Shenzhen Metro Tower, is a vertical city. This Interchange tower sits on site at the intersection with a horizontal crossroads of major boulevards. This building, indeed, integrates some urban units that city normally contains: offices, hotel, commerce, internal gardens and parks, transports (parking and metro).
The concept is simple: it consists of thinking the tower as a city rather than as a simple tower. Yet instead of conceiving the city as horizontal city,
WORKac proposes a "vertical city", that is to say a new type of mixed density. I will add that this tower can be considered a OfficeCity for the same reason that I just mentioned. This Vertical City contains places of intense urban interchange which combine infrastructure, mixed uses, and public space.
Structural system
The building's diagonal forms also help the structural system of this Vertical City, or OfficeCity. This tower is the outcome of vertically stacked units: transport, hotel, commerce, park, and office.
The organisation of the shape of this 197-meter-tall (646.32 feet) tower is derived from the trajectory of the metro as the below diagrams show.
The green area has been incorporated by cutting the edges of the tower between the different programmatic zones.
These 'green pockets" are chiseled into the building, creating a natural counterpoint to the hard edges of the tower and providing a striking visual confirmation of the building's commitment to the new ecological urbanism.
These strategic cut-out sections are water cut located on the sixteenth floor — office water cut — and in the 30th floors — hotel water cut.
Another cut-out section in the sixth floor will host a roof garden/banquet hall. As the rooftop is occupied by a hydrologic system, the architects decided to locate the garden and the banquet hall on the sixth floor.
Building an energy efficient tower: solar energy and hydrologic system
First the the tower hydrologic system. Needless to remind that Cities will be facing issues such as energy consumption and water supplies in the close future.
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| Tower Hydrology Diagram © WORKac |
Even if I cannot assert that
WORKac had this below mentioned idea when designing this proposal, nonetheless basing on the principle of the concept of "vertical city", I can argue that this tower includes a hydrologic system that reminds that of cities.
This system consists of programmatic areas that maintain their own water circulation system of collection, storage, processing, use, and re-processing of rainwater.
The rooftop is occupied by a solar and rainwater harvesting system with specifically consists of a solar energy that will power the water pumping systems throughout the tower. The water circulation diagram explains the functioning of this hydrologic system: a water circulation — rainwater — that runs through each unit and a black/graywater treatment in aquatic slices water storage on refuge floors.
Floors directly below each cut take advantage of the requirements for large trusses and refuge floors to create space for natural water filtration systems. By sharing systems, the building can also take advantage of the inverse day-night load cycles of the offices and the hotel, spreading out the maximum loads across 24 hours. As for the solar energy,
WORKac will install rooftop solar panels. This technology aims at providing additional energy for the building and to participate to its energy efficient system.
Source:
WORKac
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