Zaha Hadid Architects has already designed some of the most innovative buildings in China, like Galaxy SOHO and the Guangzhou Opera House, and now the firm is building Shanghai’s greenest building. ZHA has been chosen to build the new headquarters of the China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group (CECEP). The company funds projects that focus on renewable energy, so it’s only natural that the new HQ will incorporate sustainability into the construction process and each element of the structure. “The client brief asked for Shanghai’s greenest building and we have responded to it by putting sustainability as the foundation of our proposal,” says Michele Pasca di Magliano, ZHA project director. “We have developed some in-house tools to study the best massing and orientation of the buildings to ensure that the passive design is extremely efficient, minimizing solar heat gain and the façade-to-floor ratios. We have also worked very carefully on a shading solution that allows views towards the river while cutting out direct solar radiation.”

The 2,300,000-square-foot complex is located near the Yangpu Bridge on the Huangpu River and will consist of three office towers, as well as shopping, dining, and leisure facilities. “The CECEP Campus has a privileged riverfront position adjacent to the main bridge connecting the city to its main airport, Pudong Airport,” says Pasca di Magliano. “As such, views of the site as a gateway to the city were quite important. The project’s massing has a distinct character with a series of interlocking rings which make the project identifiable from the river and the bridge. At the same time these rings allow to break down the scale of the project and bring the public realm within the elevations of the buildings with a series of sky lobbies connecting the interior and exterior spaces.”

The Yangpu Bridge (pictured) on the Huangpu River is close to the site of the new headquarters.

The towers will house CECEP’s headquarters as well as a number of other innovative companies. An industrial building currently on the site will be repurposed as part of the complex. “This heritage building is a former sugar factory built by a Japanese company in 1930 which will form an important part of the legacy of the project,” he says. “The ground floor and the podium will connect with the park and also house retail and F&B outlets for the office workers and the wider community.”

A public park links all the elements of the campus and connects it to the city beyond. The landscaping will be irrigated using rainwater harvesting, which is just one of the sustainable features of the design. Each building’s integrated thermal mass will reduce heating and cooling consumption, an important consideration given the large difference between the day and night temperatures in the city. The cooling systems will also use non-potable water as well as thermal ice storage, a technology the firm has not used to this extent before. “We are utilizing ice storage to continue to produce ice during the night that is then used for cooling to reduce energy demand during peak daytime hours,” says Pasca di Magliano.

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The façade and roof will be outfitted with photovoltaics, which will connect to a micro grid and battery storage. “This is something we have previously employed in horizontal surfaces but never as an exterior cladding,” Pasca di Magliano says of the façade’s photovoltaics. The energy produced from the solar panels will reduce the complex’s energy usage by 25%. The building’s environment will be monitored by a management system that can react to environmental changes, such as the amount of daylight, air quality, and number or occupants, and will optimize energy usage based on the data.

The planned design, which was chosen from an international design competition, is set to achieve more than 90 credits in China’s Three Star Green Building Rating system—the highest score ever achieved in Shanghai. Construction is expected to begin at the end of the year and will take about three years to complete.

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