Our client took over this small, half-abandoned, anonymous office park as the principal landlord, and demolished and renovated several of its run-down buildings. The park has a mixture of Chinese garden and Western landscape and mainly features water, while no existing building appears worthwhile being kept.

Despite the building height being restricted by the covenant, the client needs substantial floor area than the demolished building. This pushes the new development breaking away from the existing building foot print and a part of building could be so close to the Water that a Chinese style of water-building relationship appears more appropriate, to edge into the Water straightway. Just like most corporate political structure, the offices for the management are put on the top and the staff offices and ancillary rooms on the ground floor. However, the open-plan general office housing most of the staffs is centralised, best related to the water and given biggest ceiling height. This is to reflect the ethos of the Company ‘to put staff first’. The by-product is a split-level roof terrace over-looking the lake, which is big enough to facility the outdoor event for the whole company. This is believed to be a valuable asset to the client particular when the outdoor space on the ground level is very much limited by the site.

To deliver a higher spatial quality to the deep core area, a patio planted with bamboo, is inserted into the heart of the building, in a hope to introduce natural light and ventilation for the surrounding rooms. A reinforced concrete panel overhanging above the full-height windows protects the general office from summer overheating, and low-level open-able panels on the window introduce water level cooler wind to assist free cooling.

The existing Chinese style zig-zag footbridge leading to a small ‘island’ is retained and linked to the egress of general office, through a terrace hovering above the water and safeguarded by sitting benches with lazy-backs of modern version.

Externally, the overall colour is subdued to grey serials: whitewash rendering, light grey standing-seam Al-Mg-Mn alloy panel roofing and mid-grey terracotta split-tiling. To add some flavour into the greyscale, dark orange rendering is assigned to some shaded sides of structure.

Client: Shanghai Bontai Real Estate Development Co ltd

Building Floor Area: 1,100sqm Site area: 2,500sqm Construction Cost:

Architects Team: J Wu, HY Ma, W Yin of Pro-Form Architects Limited (www.pfarch.co.uk)

Structural & M/E Engineers：China Northeast Architectural Design & Research Institute Co ltd Shanghai Office