Construction is underway on the Sinosteel International Plaza in Tinajin, China designed by Beijing-based architects MAD.
The development consists of a 358 metre-high office tower and adjacent hotel at 88 metres.
An external honeycomb structure incorporates hexagonal windows in five different sizes, arranged according to wind and solar direction on the site in order to regulate the internal temperature of the towers.
Building is due for completion in 2012.
The following information is from MAD:
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SINOSTEEL INTERNATIONAL PLAZA UNDER CONSTRUCTION
A new MAD building is under construction. The Sinosteel International Plaza will be a new organic, honeycomb icon for the redeveloped city of Tinajin. The building will be completed by 2012.
The Chinese central government has named Tianjin, a port city one hour east of Beijing, as the next step in its economic plan. Within Tianjin, they will create the Binhai New District, the new economic hub of Northern China. This will be achieved in five years. Sino Steel, China’s state owned steel giant, commissioned MAD to create a landmark for this new central business district. They specified two towers: an office tower (358 metres) and a smaller hotel (88 metres).
We wanted to move away from the usual image of the central business district: rows and rows of glass and steel boxes. Our design is natural, organic and futuristic.
The shape of the two buildings is very simple: a rounded box. The façade is constructed from five different sizes of hexagonal windows, a traditional element in Chinese architecture. These windows flow across the building in an irregular, naturally occurring pattern: like cells multiplying. This pattern gives life to the building, changing the way it looks from different perspectives. The towers rise from a green hill which functions as the hotel’s podium, a further contrast against the hard surfaces in the rest of the Binhai New District.
The honeycomb façade is also what’s holding the building up: the skin is the structure. This removes any need for internal structures, freeing up the building to a much more flexible use. This bold new solution will challenge conventional construction technology, in order to achieve something unique. A perfect combination of strength and beauty.
The honeycomb also allows the building to be energy efficient. Although the pattern at first appears to be random, it actually responds to patterns of sun and wind on the building. By mapping the different air flows and solar direction across the site, we were able to position different sized windows accordingly, minimizing heat loss in the winter and heat gain in the summer.
Our design sees oriental features combined with novel, futuristic building methods. The Sinosteel International Plaza will become something natural, growing in the man-made environment of this new urban area.
Client: SINOSTEEL International Plaza (Tianjin) Ltd
Status: under construction. To be completed 2012.
Programme: Office, Hotel, Service Apartment
Site Area: 26,666 sqm
Building Area: 350,000 sqm
Building Height: 358m
Director in Charge: Ma Yansong, Qun Dang
Design Team: Eric Spencer, Liu Xiaopu, Tony Yam, So Sugita, Zhao Wei, Wang Xingfang, Li Jieran, Lu Lu
Associate Architects/Engineers: Jiang Architects & Engineers
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Posted by Rose Etherington
July 30th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
smart design. poor architecture
July 30th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Certainly different and unusual, and though it towers above it’s neighbors, it come in at a modest 358m. No section when the floor bisects an opening, but from the perspective images, there would be no fire separation. I’d like to see how this detail is really handled. Somehow the motif of the hexagon seems carried to extremes.
July 30th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Very nice! Great example on how you can create something new and appealing without creating a new tower of babylon that seems to be the preferred style of the day nowadays.
July 30th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I’m curious as to how much steel this building will eat up compared other modern buildings of the same scale.
July 30th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Looks like a very large cheese grater
July 30th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I’m curious to see the roof details needed to get it to look like that. With a helipad on top!
July 30th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
nice job and good renderings
July 30th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Is that the new mac server case?
July 30th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
I think this is total BS, the chinese rendering companies are giving away concepts and visuals aquired from jobs that we send them and thus projects like these who look exactly like something i worked on 3 years ago come to be, shame on you. Unfortunatly you cant sue anyone. Look at the company’s website all their work looks borrowed from everyone else, and please dont tell me that architects get inspired by other works, this is a complete replica.
Shame on you.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I know there’s another building in the works, I think it’s in Singapore, that looks EXACTLY like that… only that the backdrop color (or was it the framing) is orange (it has the white+orange+red combination going on).
I… find it absolutely lame. Then again, maybe it could get away once it’s built. I mean, there are buildings that look really dull in rendering but once it’s done it looks, well, pretty okay. :-\
July 30th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
finally they spot the loop ahh boring
July 30th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Edward Durrell Stone was doing this crap 50 years ago and it sucked then too.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Another tower that gives little consideration,if any, to what happens at street level - car-dominated, no character, no human scale…depressing!
July 31st, 2008 at 12:04 am
i think everybody needs to remember one thing before they comment:
critical thinking does not necessarily mean being critical.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:17 am
sk: I worked on this project and I can say with relative certainty that there was no chinese rendering conspiracy to steal your ideas. Do you even know who did the renderings for this project? The office does derive most of their work from projects and architects whom have been previous employers to them. It is fact is possible to do this. My guess is they got their idea from this:
http://www.stoutbooks.com/cgi-bin/stoutbooks.cgi/74980.html
I think this is just an idea thats floated around digital circles a lot lately. Doesnt take a stroke of genius to do it.
Also, the honeycomb shape is mainly only useful as a method of minimizing material use and surface area in a 3d volume, not as a 2d structural device as most architects seem to believe. Its pretty though I suppose.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:40 am
From what I see here I think this is great work. I am also impressed with the use of the honeycomb to provide the primary structure. Fantastic - particularly when you consider that the area with the largest honeycombs/windows is right at the base where the loading is highest i believe.
I think this will look incredible.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:03 am
Guys, Don’t forget this a 358 meters super highrise, look around the world, not many super tall building look interesting , no? I like this building, I think the skin-structure is smart, I suppose this collumn free building will save some steel because the core can be lot lighter. Looking forward to see the construction photos.
July 31st, 2008 at 12:03 pm
The treatment of the base is obviously stylistic rather than structural, after all this will not be made of stone, but the same effect could be achieved making the facade dynamic by transforming the alignment of the hexagrams.
http://www.sekisui-ud.jp/mobius/english/pc/transforming.html
July 31st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
its no so bad…c’mon…if they get it built, that is an acheivement in itself!! its way to easy to criticise but much harder to get architecture built…be fair, it takes a great deal of hard work!!!
July 31st, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Sekisui contruction sounds more like a modernistic approach.
in nyase i guess this is a facade project rather than spatial project that pursuit the development of surprisig inteiour spaces within. It is not sounds to imagine that the tower of over 350m utilise its facade as the constructive parts that taks the vertical loads…
July 31st, 2008 at 3:15 pm
very good link thankyou edward.
facade pattern and window size/loc is apparently not stylized, but has been generated by mapping air flows and solar direction to aid passive climate control…
July 31st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
how come my name is on the third? pu…what is up?
July 31st, 2008 at 6:50 pm
anothe one… very boring
July 31st, 2008 at 7:38 pm
We, as the Chinese architects, need to find our ways.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:00 am
Purely formalism. big icon with tricky skins. I am wandering where is the diagram for the ecology design? I guess not a zero. Shame on MAD, produced another shit in China
August 1st, 2008 at 12:58 am
Cutout for this skin can be made in photoshop with few cliks. Booring. Who did it? first level architecture student?
August 1st, 2008 at 1:43 am
youys, I think this window/ wall system is more energy efficient than most glass curtain wall buildings, I respect MAD made this straight tower, simple and elegent, cause they usually making complex curves.
Talking about shit in China, CCTV building by OMA should be the big one, it costs 3 times amount of steel to build that “short pants”.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:53 am
by the way, hexagonal window was exist in traditional chinese gardens.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:46 am
Mad produces bullshit as usual…post zaha stylistic tendancies with none of the rigour but plenty of bullshit..all post rationalized work…
amazing how much bullshit can get by MA YANSONG
August 1st, 2008 at 1:35 pm
The city name is Tianjin, not Tinajin. Copy & Paste anyone?
August 1st, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Uninspiring, boring and trying too hard.
I’m sure I’ve seen another building which looks exactly like this but with red inside the hexagons..
Looks o.k in the night renders
August 1st, 2008 at 3:11 pm
in 15 years will it still look “cool”?
August 1st, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Lot of anger here; do some of you know him personally, and feel he owes you money? The ‘Chinese rendering company conspiracy’ has me in stitches… the idea that only the Chinese have access to images of contemporary buildings is weird.
Jake, are you thinking of Rojkind, which doesn’t look anything like this (exoskeleton, but not modular)?
August 1st, 2008 at 6:15 pm
I’m sure the red/orange hexagon window building is earlier rendering of this project released by MAD.
Don’t understand how this project become post zaha, richy? so funny! anyway, let’s wait to see the real building.
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:17 am
Yes! construction will spend plenty steel than any other modern buildings, but fortunately China have their cheap labour.
August 2nd, 2008 at 4:01 pm
A lot of the comments here have been unfair to MAD. 99% of the architects in China are doing very mediocre if not bad work, MAD as a young practice on the other hand is striving to find an alternative voice in that context.
Part to whole problems - be it honey comb or vorenoi - is common with digital practices. To say that MAD has ripped off this motif is misguided and out-right wrong.
Yes, the influence of Zaha is unmistakeable but if it is a springing point to find a new voice, it is very much in the tradition of ‘being Mies’ or ‘being Corb’. And time will tell if MAD will surpass this.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
nice try,… China may not achieve artistic pinnale in as short a period as the recent economic boom… That is only normal.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
this building has somewhat very similar facade sense to the building “Urban Hive” in Seoul, Korea.
August 7th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
SK ——your shit thinking may be deep, however you probably forget how many commercial buildings borrow precedents from each other, in uk, and states. if you lost the bid to some chinese CGI, its your shame, not ours,
if you cannot say something useful, at least don’t pretend you are deep thinker. try to fix your leaking stinking mouth first pls.
by the way SB suits you better than SK
August 15th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Shenzhen Stock Exchange Plaza by oma is the most terrible building in china i think….does not give any consideration on history,culture and environment issue which are now being more and more important for architecture field.People in 60s,70s and 80s are not concerning about all these issues while nowadays in this globalised world, we should care and concern about these issues even in build environment.
it is another international style.
whereas, MAD gave their effort to find a new way for architecture in China, inject new contemporary elements in China Cities, producinng world class building with simple yet elegent design.Congratulation to MAD
Of coz, what i mean is just this 2 buildings, exclude the other buildings designed by MAD!Sory to MAD fans
August 26th, 2008 at 11:32 am
who is SK? Don’t you know ma yansong use his butt to design architecutre and use his ass to see things. that is why the BS came from. get it?
August 27th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Poor muck fad, r u mentally OK? seems u have got some deep wounds inside, really feel sorry for you as what u said makes u sounds as bs as MAD…
September 13th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Of course, it is easy to criticize people from your computer where nobody knows who you are….
But I would like to see you guys get this building built 4 years out of school. Ma has broken a lot of ground when it comes to Chinese architects, and he has a long way to go. That doesn’t mean this is the greatest building in the world, but give the guy some credit.
If anyone think they can start their own firm just out of college and then get a better 80 story building built, I suggest you stop sitting at your computer and start actually doing something.