OMA, the Netherlands-based firm led by Rem Koolhaas, Hon. FAIA, has completed the new headquarters for the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE). Totaling 265,000 square meters (2,852,436 square feet) in overall size—with approximately one-third of that below-grade—the tower houses conference centers, an art gallery, and retail areas in addition to the main stock exchange offices. A three-story ‘podium’—topped by an accessible roof garden—is situated 118 feet up the face of the 46-story tower; this podium houses the full functions of the stock exchange and its supporting programs across 15,000-square-meter (161,459-square-foot) floor plates. A perimeter grid of full-depth, diagonal structural trusses wraps the cantilevered podium and transfers vertical and lateral loads back into the central tower, which is itself lined with diagonal supports below the podium and regular gridded exoskeleton above. The upper portion of the tower features deep-set glazing on the interior side of the structural walls, such that the depth of the façade provides passive shading to reduce solar heat gain; the Stock Exchange tower aims to be one of the first green-rated buildings in China under the 3-Star system, run by the country’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
The Shenzhen Stock Exchange is OMA’s second finished project in China; the first was the China Central Television (CCTV) Headquarters, 1,350 miles away in Beijing, which was completed in 2012. CCTV was meant to have a sister project, Television Cultural Centre (TVCC)—a Mandarin Oriental hotel, also designed by OMA—but the substantially complete tower burned down under questionable circumstances during Lunar New Year celebrations in 2009. OMA won the commission for the SZSE tower in 2006, and won another commission for a second tower in the Shenzhen Financial District, the Essence Financial Building, earlier this year.
For more images and information on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, please visit ARCHITECT Magazine’s Project Gallery.
