This project is located in the Goertek Office Park, Laoshan District, Qingdao. The public space is inside the main building, including the lobby, elevator hall, café and leisure area.
As the office park is adjacent to the Laoshan Scenic Area and has a beautiful natural environment, the main architectural design concept is reflected by the horizontal GRC lines: in the external building façade, horizontal lines simulate the characteristics of the surrounding mountains, and introduce the nature into the building by creating a rich semi-outdoor space; in the internal space, the horizontal layers strengthen the spatial connection between various floors. In addition, fair-faced concrete is largely used in the R&D building, in order to express the simple and elegant architectural characteristics through the tension of structure and materials.
The interior design of the entire public area respects the original architectural design logic by creating horizontal multi-story platforms and void patios in the tall space, and also brings an outdoor feeling by simulating the skylight. The original building plan did not use a centralized traffic core, but four scattered rectangular cores surrounded the atrium space and the proliferated open space. Therefore, our design strategy is to enhance the discrete layout logic, implant a serious of square geometric bodies into the original structural frame, such as light box, exhibition hall, bar space and the larger stairs, trying to reconstruct the spatial layout by simple and abstract method.
The material language takes the fair-faced concrete, which has been used in the structure as the fundamental logic of material organization. The usage of a series of cold, warm, translucent and reflective building materials brings abundant spatial experience and beauty. In the elevator hall area, which are on the first and second floors, the “light box” formed by the backlit U-shaped glass creates a texture contrast with the exposed concrete wall; while the anodized aluminum plates used in the main hall and exhibition area produce different diffuse reflection effects. The splicing method of the anodized aluminum plates also increases a sense of craftsmanship in the use of materials, which demonstrates the R&D headquarters temperament of technology company from another perspective. The floor of the public area uses black granite produced in Africa, it also used to coherence to the dominant gray texture of the fair-faced concrete wall. We also use natural wood for the material of leisure space, tea bar and the large stairs, as well as the mezzanine platform, embellishing a warm and pleasant leisure space in the R&D building.
We applied the building materials which are normally used for the exterior- such as fair faced concrete, anodized aluminum plates, U-shaped glass and granite, etc., into the interior of the R&D building. On the one hand, the properties of materials could help to highlight the simplicity of the tall space inside the building; on the other hand, it also blurs the definition of space inside and outside of the building, aiming to create an outdoor sense in the entire public area.
Project Name: Public Space of Goertek Global R&D Headquarters
Architecture/ Interior Design: MAT Office
Lead Architect: TANG Kangshuo, ZHANG Miao
Project Architect: WANG Feiyu
Design Team: LIU Youpeng, TAN Xiaodan, TONG Siyang, Liu Huixian, WANG Yiran(Architectural Drawing), ZHANG Wenjingyu(Architectural Drawing)
Design and Construction: 2020.04-2020.12
Project Client: Goertek
Project Location: Shandong Qingdao, Laoshan District
Built Area: 3500 m2
Design Material: Anodized aluminum plate, U-shaped glass, Black granite
General Contractor: Shanghai Hooyi Architectural Decoration Engineering Co., Ltd.
Secondary Structure Design: Qingdao Tengyuan Design Institute Co., Ltd.
Photographer: WU Qingshan, TRI-Images