Working in the green in the Future Hill R&D Campus
The campus targets tech, IT and mobile industry, from startups to matured medium sized enterprises. Since the people working in this industry are relatively young, the aim is to develop an attracting healthy and green working environment in which every company can express their individual qualities while benefiting from a powerful collective platform.
The site is located in the Panyu district of Guangzhou (China) and located next to a natural green hill on the southern border. The design team developed a configuration with relatively small size villa type buildings to create an open, permeable campus and allow the green atmosphere from the hill to infuse the campus.
The buildings are organized around a central axis, leading to the shared facilities in the main building and the sunken plaza. On both sides of the axis, patios and sunken gardens emphasize the dialogue between the green and the buildings. The overall framework of axis and aligned shared spaces aims to bring people together in order to build communities, stimulate exchange between the users and enhance business.
The outer ring of villa type units with sunken gardens, green patios and roof gardens absorb the green qualities of their surroundings and maximize the feeling of working in the green. The central building and its central sunken plaza provide shared facilities such as exhibition/event space, gym, convenience store, food & beverage outlets and incubator spaces.
The overall architecture design has a consistent contemporary expression, in which every unit has its subtle refinement in the façade pattern, referring to different identities. Units on the outer ring can be combined into bigger units when needed to offer maximum flexibility for the users. The dark grey plinth aims to visually make the buildings ‘float’ in the green.
Pictures by Highlite images (exterior) & Eiichi Kano (interior)