Complementing China’s Tallest Building with Lush Greenery
{"autoplay":"true","autoplay_speed":"8000","speed":"1000","arrows":"true","dots":"false","loop":"true","nav_slide_column":5,"rtl":"false"}
{"autoplay":"true","autoplay_speed":"8000","speed":"1000","arrows":"true","dots":"false","loop":"true","nav_slide_column":5,"rtl":"false"}

DETAILS

LocationShanghai, China
ClientGensler
Size12,921 m2

China’s tallest building, Shanghai Tower, is located in the Lujiazui Financial Center Zone near the Shanghai World Financial Center and Jin-Mao tower. SWA’s landscape design establishes a “Tower Park” to complement the building’s iconic form and function, connect the mixed-use project with its urban neighborhood, and provide a variety of beautiful settings for public gatherings and celebrations.  The project’s LEED-Gold certification required 33 percent green cover – a unique challenge given the size of the building and its hardscape. 90 percent of the landscape is on-structure. SWA designed an informal greenbelt and a park connecting to an adjoining property. Features include an event-center roof garden, a sunken garden that with a bamboo island within a water pool, and dramatic sky gardens for each atrium that repeat plantings in a vertical pattern to draw the eye skyward and accentuate the tower’s unique open-ended spiral form.

Related Projects

Weyerhaeuser Corporate Headquarters

Founding SWA partner Peter Walker collaborated with architects SOM on site analysis, planning, and landscape development for this hugely influential corporate headquarters, which remains notable for its unique integration of landscape, architecture, and environmental stewardship. The 425-acre site was chosen by the design team with George Weyerhaeuser for its ...

Electronic Arts

The plan for the Electronic Arts corporate campus included nine office buildings, a commons building (including a cafeteria, health center, and fitness center), a theater, a parking structure, and a childcare center. The computer game software company’s offices support a grand lawn quad. The quad not only provides a campus focus but also serves as a stor...

Hewlett Packard Roseville

This restudy of the master plan for the 200-hectare Hewlett Packard site at Roseville, undertaken with architects Holland, East & Duvivier, led to a new master plan for the 23,000-square-meter service, repair, and distribution facility on the site as well as full landscape architectural services for the upgrading of the surrounding landscape. The plan deta...

Giant Interactive Headquarters

SWA collaborated with Morphosis Architects on a new ecological park and living laboratory for Giant Interactive Headquarters, a 45-acre corporate campus in Shanghai, China. The design concept blurs the distinction between the ground plane and the structure, weaving water and wetland habitats together with the folded green roof of the main building design. The ...