Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas have won a project to design a new tower in the Chinese city of Shenzhen 200 metres in height.
The scheme, called Guosen Tower, takes the idea of a basic square foot printed tower rising from a 12,000 square metre retail podium building, and then slices a zig-zagging space through it as it is has been struck by a lightning bolt. This creates an enormous void that runs vertically from top to bottom functioning as an atrium in addition to adding visual interest.
It will also open up the deep floor-plates of the building to more natural daylight, and allow irregular office plans that can be subdivided into multiple occupiers on each floor.
Distributed evenly through the height of the tower, and connected into the atrium, are three sky gardens, the tallest at the top, with the other two marking each third segment of the building. One of these will serve as the entrance lobby to Guosen Securities who will be occupying much of the 68,000 square metres of offices in the project, with the upper sky garden for executive use.
Cladding the occupied areas of the skyscraper will be a transparent glass façade with floor to ceiling glazing throughout. Behind this will be a complicated network of horizontal louvres that will add texture to the façade, and also solar shading where it is most needed.