Foshan Hongwang Headquarters-"Intelligent Gardens" An Urban Revolution in Deterritorialization Landscape
This is a reimagining of urban lifestyles, a search for new breakthroughs in the public spaces of modern cities. The design of the Hongwang Headquarters Building in Foshan, Guangzhou, allows us to propose a new approach to the future of urban development, documenting a milestone in the transition from confrontation to balance between urban development and the nature we rely on for our survival. The Unscrambled Landscape Space stimulates a new type of urban space regeneration, leading us back to a more ecological natural environment.
A city's naturally growing landscape will become the most urbanized public space in the city. However, the rural nature has been struggling with the urbanization of capital, nature is similar to human life attributes, from the original attributes of plants and human activities are closely related, but the more primitive activities, the stronger the correlation. The development of urban civilization, the rapid expansion of the long process of de-ruralization, a large number of urban construction, making the so-called civilized society grow bigger and bigger, but we are farther and farther away from the most primitive original heart, a kind of primitive nature of the state of growth in nature. So the modern capitalism, brought a return to the original public behavior space, defined as parks, the creation of parks symbolizes the beginning of mankind's transformation to the ruralization of the urban movement, with the urban attributes of the ruralization movement is different from the original nature, more decorative, nourishing the urban life, and highlights the capital of a hedonistic way of life. However, the landscape space of the decolonized area absorbs the primitive nature of the park and spreads out under the overall urban space, forming a physical balance and mutual complement of urban space and natural space, which makes the artificialization more natural and the naturalization more logical.
△West entrance to the north commercial area
I read a poem by Byron a long time ago:
I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me; and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities torture: I can see
Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be
A link reluctant in a fleshly chain,
Class'd among creatures, when the soul can flee,
And with the sky--the peak--the heaving plain
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle--and not in vain.
George Gordon Byron (1788-1824)
The total construction area of the Hongwang Headquarters Building is 41,742 square meters, which is located in the scientific and technological development plot of Wenhan Lake Town in Foshan City, and more urban space will be connected with the open landscape of the city on the north side in the future, however, the overall building form of the space on the ground of the 1st-4th floors, with the construction area of nearly 15,000 square meters, is cut into two volumes of the north and south of the center of the Hongwang Headquarters Hall, however, through the further segmentation of the volume, a more humanized small-scale space is generated to give the northern commercial space and the southern leasing office space. Both spaces are centered around an open courtyard in the middle of the space, forming the momentum of an artificial valley as a whole, so that the participants can walk in the valley as if they were walking in the valley, accompanied by the different steps and different landscapes of pocket parks and landscapes set up in the different standards of the high school, so that when they are tired of walking, they can all sit down and rest, looking into the distance and enjoying the beauty of the surrounding scenery. The valley space is wrapped by nature, following nature as one.
△Exterior commercial street on the 3rd floor of the north side commercial area
△Northeast corner of 5th floor overlooking the west side of Wenhan Lake
△North Entrance of North Commercial Street
The horizontal growth of urban nature follows the extension of the southern space of the tower, however, the southern façade of the headquarters building is integrated by the small-scale courtyard space, and follows the trend upwards to form a grand vertical garden of the south landscape courtyard group, the miniature landscaping on each floor provides comfortable and super-oxidized working space for different floors of the office environment, as well as outdoor resting space. Natural planting on each level provides effective shade for efficient use of the office space and enhances indoor physical comfort. The staircase connects the outdoor landscape areas at different elevations. Vertical courtyards are designed to create microclimates and microenvironments, where plants and microorganisms coexist to form a whole set of natural ecosystems. The low-carbon lifestyle structures a new type of future office space, breaking the traditional rigid and oppressive office environment wrapped in steel and concrete, and allowing the human body and mind to embrace nature more harmoniously, ultimately achieving the alternative space mode of working in nature. And the whole set of façade is like a natural landscape painting of the city, which improves the comfort of the overall urban interface.
△Vertical landscaping of the south tower
△View of the south tower from the south leased office area
The future construction of the Hongwang Headquarters Building proposes a new direction of human-centered urban development. Contemporary cities are made of nature stitched together with masonry and concrete, and they are perfectly compiled together so that the surface of the city is composed of two sides, the soft and the hard. Urbanization has led us to focus more and more on reinforced concrete buildings, while neglecting the forests and plants that brought us the original life. Plants and concrete masonry are in play in today's cities. More and more urban construction eliminates the original earthy places, making us too tired, too impatient, and farther and farther away from the original heart in the pursuit of capital. However, the softness, flexibility, randomness and purification of plants are a good medicine to shelter the city and relieve the irritability of the city. Returning to the primitive, returning to nature has become the contemporary utopia of today's urban life. Let's start from the "heart", embrace the valley and return to nature once again.
△Vertical landscaping of the south tower
△North 3-story view of interior courtyard
Project Name: Hong Wang Headquarters Building - "Smart Garden Valley"
Project Type: Commissioned Project
Location: Foshan, Guangdong Province
Designed by: JOA Open Architecture (Shanghai Open Architecture Co., Ltd.)
Design Team: Wang Kai, Jordan Yerbury, Liu Wenbin, Zhu Yunxi, Sophie, Li Yiran, Chen Shijia, Luca Ronchi, Zhang Suli
Landscape Design Team: Foshan City Creative House Design Consultant Co.
Deepening/Construction Drawing Team: Yi+Partners / Guangdong Qiyuan Architectural Engineering Design Institute
Design Period: 2022
Estimated Project Completion Time: 2024
Site area: 14908m²
Gross floor area: 40988m²
Above Ground GFA: 38826m²
Underground GFA: 33042m²
Total building height: 60m
Number of floors of headquarter office building: 13 floors
Underground parking spaces: 328
(Specific data will be adjusted later)
