PROJECTS  

Landmark Plaza, Shanghai, China

Landmark Plaza is a 21 storey office building on LuJia Ban Road in Shanghai, China. It houses the corporate offices of a major bank with retail banking facilities at its base. The tightness of the site did not allow for a skyscraper that would rival the many towers in Shanghai, so we provided a distinctive design to give the bank and its tenants a striking corporate symbol.

The design concept is simple but powerful, using the idea of a cradle displaying a jewel, which is a traditional method of displaying artifacts in one's home in China. Materials utilized to achieve the desired effect are a dark red granite as the cradle and a shiny reflective glass as the jewel. Furthermore, the glass is expressed as a curved gem following a gentle radius from the top of the 21st floor out to a tangent point at mid-height floors, curving back into the base of the building leading visitors to the entrance of the tower.

Excited by the design, the Shanghai City Planning Department granted the client additional density for the site.

© 2002 - 2007 NgChee Architects and Tara Cleveland