Rapid Development Ethos Within Historic Natural Setting 
{"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

LocationGuangzhou, Guangdong, China
ClientSOM
Size57 hectares

Poly International Plaza is an innovative office, retail, and exhibition center development located in the Guangzhou trade district. Sited along the Pearl River and adjacent to historic Pazhou Temple Park, the project presents a precedent toward integrating development with its site and context, embracing the place of garden and sustainability in the society’s rapid move toward modernization. The site plan forms a series of gardens and plazas. A major North-South promenade along the west boundary provides connections to an offsite hotel development and convention hall and a diagonal spatial arrangement enhances visual connections to the Pagoda Park south of the site and the Pearl River north of the site. The complete design seeks to integrate the southern Chinese landscape traditions with a modern sensitivity toward local context, climate, flora and SOM’s modern architecture. Tall, continuous tree canopies in combination with water features help to moderate the climate in providing shade and capturing cooling breezes for exterior spaces.

Related Projects

Lake Park Business Center

The site design is charged with a strong geometric pattern formed through large swaths of native planting, decking, and sunken courts. A rectangular grid is enhanced by intersecting materials, textures, light, and shade. Subtle grade changes create opportunities for seat walls and sunken gardens.  The intimate spaces that result provide for gathering, conversa...

Lite-On Headquarters

This major Taiwanese electronics company chose Taipei’s “Electronics Center” overlooking the Gee Long River for their new headquarters. The overall concept is of a 25-story slender tower rising above a sloped landscape podium that covers much of the site. Below-grade parking slopes toward the river on one side, with the urban center on the ot...

Roche Diagnostics

As the first manufacturing facility in Asia, Roche Diagnostics hopes to set a model for future projects in the region. Located in Suzhou, a city with a strong tradition of gardening, this flagship factory will not only meet Roche’s global standard, but will be infused with the spirit of the city’s gardens, distinguishing it from a stereotypical factory. A clea...

Tencent Shenzhen Headquarters

Spanning nearly two million square meters on a peninsula sheltering Shenzhen’s Qianhai Bay, Tencent’s new headquarters serve as the domestic anchor for the tech giant’s global operations in China. Once completed, it will be one of the largest tech campuses in the world, roughly the size of Manhattan.

The campus is entirely car-free. Designed by an inter...

Alipay Headquarters

The new the Hangzhou Alipay Headquarters is located between the Xi Xi wetlands and downtown Hangzhou, a city renowned for its rich culture and beautiful landscapes. Hills and small mountains surround the headquarters building in three directions, and in the fourth lies downtown Hangzhou. Three landscape “movements” derived from openings in the building direct ...

Westlake Corporate Campus

Westlake Corporate Campus is a 107-acre corporate training facility and retreat center for Deloitte LLP. Formerly, Deloitte had conducted new employee training, team building, and continuing education workshops at various hotel sites across the United States. The project encompasses indoor/outdoor classroom facilities, recreation, and many other retreat-type a...

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 ...