Description

Site: Shunyi District, Beijing
Time: 2014-2018
Status: Completed
Size: 23,600 sqm
Client: Gold Concord Investment Co.,LTD.
Architecture Design: PRAXiS d’ARCHITECTURE
Team: Di Shaohua, Liu Xing, Feng Jiancheng, Lu Dongxia, Huo Junlong, Jiang Bo, Xu Xinxin, Zhan Enhe
Construction Documentation: China Construction Engineering Design Group Co.,LTD.
Interior Design: Lin Zhenzhong, STID Group
Landscape Design: Alex Camprubi，Arppa Design Studio
Lighting Design: Beijing Kai Shun Teng Engineering Consultant LTD
Photographer: Feng Shuxian, He Lian, Zhou Ruogu

Project Background

The Tian Yun development targets at private small and mid-sized research and technological enterprises to provide affordable office spaces at the fringe of big cities. Although non main economic actors, these private firms are playing an essential role in helping to build a solid economy, as Chinese society has come to realize after 30 years of a real estate backed economy.

In the outskirts of the second and third-tier cities in China, rapid urbanization, more strict environmental pollution control have resulted in large-scale manufacture plants relocating away from these major cities, and meanwhile new industries such as research and technology businesses are fulfilling these industrial sites. The premise of the design was an office complex that contains mainly single office units with a fraction for commercial facilities.

Some small and medium-size private enterprises need to upgrade to bigger cities from fourth or fifth-tier cities. They would choose to rent or buy office space on the fringe of city at an affordable price than paying for expensive downtown rent. Moreover, the large-scale industrial plants that have moved away still need some functions such as showrooms or clearing houses to remain at the previous location to maintain the bond with big cities. Such market demand hence becomes the backbone of business operation of the office park.

The influx of new businesses will bring unprecedentedly higher tax revenue to local governments who are willing to offer the land to developers with rational proposals at a bargain price, which makes it possible for the sales and leasing prices of the end product affordable to private enterprises. This business model benefits local government, developer and private companies, creating a virtuous circle under market mechanism.

Unit Study

Our design started from studying the basic office unit. The concept of Modularization is applied in the design of office unit. The floor plan is defined by either one or two 8.4m by 8.4m structure frames with an additional 3.3m cantilever to facilitate office use. Combined with it is an efficient functional core that has solved the puzzle of connecting office units and maximizing the office space use to achieve a room rate at minimum 90%. Units can be arranged to form several basic geometrical forms: I-shaped, T-shaped and cross-shaped, which can be mixed and configured to achieve rich architectural forms and urban spaces. The height of each building can be 5 to 7 floors above ground.

Application in Architectural Scale

The design of Tian Yun complex is based on the characteristic of the site. L-shaped form was chosen from the four basic geometries to enclose the site to generate a central plaza. Each L-shape building is made of two office units. The buildings have seven floors above ground and one basement level. The total floor area of the large unit is 2600 sqm, while the small unit is 1900 sqm.

The architecture facade is also based on modularization. Rounded corner emphasizes fluidity as well as symbolizing harmony in Chinese traditional culture. We have made analysis on the gradual changes of five types of curve boundaries in the vertical direction and then reduced to an alternate repetitions of two curve boundaries. An office unit with less modules is to maximize the efficiency of duplication and to minimize construction cost when high-frequency repetition is anticipated in a bigger scale development. The alteration of two curve boundaries is sufficient in providing more sunlight to the interior while enriching an individual’s experience of spatial change on the balcony.

The modularization system saved cost in construction, so the balconies with planters around is affordable within the limit of the budget. The curved balconies with planters embrace the glazed office spaces and creates fluid social space during work breaks. Due to the cold weather in the north part of China, instead of applying deciduous ivy, euonymus japonicus was chosen to create plant terraces to achieve vertical greening which can survive through the cold winter.

Each unit has a compact functional core, the glass curtain walls reach the floor on each level to maximize natural sunlight and view for the users. The clean office space offers maximum flexibility for future tenants when they envision their own interior design. Parking and restaurants are built underground. The glass roof in the plaza provides daylight for underground restaurants. All the materials used are domestic materials, which helped to control the budget. The architecture has an overall austere appearance while providing lyrical spatial experiences for individuals at work breaks.

Application in Urban Scale ( Future Development)

Since completion of the Tian Yun Complex, it has received great results in test marketing. PRAXiS d’ ARCHITECTURE is now working on the next phase of design using this product as the main typology to incorporate it into a land parcel of approximately 13 hectares.

Bauhaus celebrated industrial mass production that considerably reduced construction cost, and to advocate a non-hierarchical formal and spatial structure that was to serve a better purpose in human dwelling in both physical and metaphysical sense. Now in the contemporary era, however, when the Revolution fostered idea no longer exists, and when accumulation of wealth enabled consumption of diversified architectural expressions, the modern aesthetics, when carried out with expensiveness, has recessed to a mere style. Bauhaus emphasis on “scientific thinking”, rationality of structure and economical use of materials in architecture, however, has never lost legitimacy over the century. The design of Tian Yun affordable Office sought to practice the original meaning of “modern architecture” in contemporary Chinese urban context.