Steven Holl Architects Wins Master Plan in “Shenzhen 4 Tower in 1” Competition

Steven Holl Architects have been selected as the winning firm for the design of the master plan of the “Shenzhen 4 Tower in 1” competition

Bird’s eye view of the winning “Shenzhen 4 Tower in 1” master plan proposal by Steven Holl Architects


Close up of the Public Promenade

This competition was for an office tower complex around the new Shenzhen Stock Exchange Headquarters located in Shenzhen’s Futian commercial business district. It was organized by the Shenzhen Planning Bureau to create a unified urban plan, around the Headquarters, for the new office towers of Shenzhen Media Group, China Construction Bank, China Insurance Group, and Southern & Bosera Funds.

Model photo of the master plan proposal

A six-member jury chaired by Arata Isozaki selected the winners of the competition. Other participants, including Morphosis, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Atelier FCJZ, Hans Hollein, and MVRDV, won for their individual tower designs.

Rendering of the Social Bracket


Rendering of am office interior


Rendering of Tower B Entrance

Steven Holl Architects’ design for the master plan is based on the concept of tropical skyscrapers as Shade Machines with a Social Bracket connecting the towers and the street level with a horizontal structure containing public programs and a rooftop water garden.

Watercolor by Steven Holl The Social Bracket gathers the public programs from all four towers, combining them as one continuous element that links the four sites with the city streets and pedestrian traffic. Supporting programs for the towers, such as cafeterias and gyms, are combined in the Social Bracket and enhanced with cultural programs such as art galleries, auditoriums, and a cinema. The Social Bracket’s sculpted form allows it to negotiate between environmental restrictions and the requirements of the public programs. It features a continuous roof garden park that collects storm water and recycles all the greywater from the four skyscrapers.

Watercolor by Steven Holl

Roof garden ponds and plantings utilize the combined storm water and greywater after passage through a central ultraviolet filter system. A public route connects the subway into the Social Bracket, linking directly to all four towers. Connecting across the Stock Exchange Plaza, the new elevated bracket acts as an urban interface between the business-centric district to the south and the residential area to the north.

Diagram: 4 + 1 = 2

Steven Holl Architects’ design for the four towers as Shade Machine utilizes circular building footprints to maximize the interior space and open views while minimizing the exterior envelope. The optimized office floors are connected via double-height and triple-height social spaces on alternating sides of the towers.

Diagram: Winter / Garden Infrastructure

Automatic solar tracking screens made of perforated PV cells make one full rotation per day around the circumference of each building, collecting enough PV energy to cool the towers completely. Always oriented towards the sun, the moving shades harvest solar energy and block solar heat gain, their louvered sections tilting to horizontal orientation at noon to gather maximum sunlight.

Diagram: Social Bracket

The one-meter deep louvers block high-angle solar gain and bounce diffused natural light onto the ceilings deep into the floor plate. The screens’ full rotation per day allows the towers to act as an urban clock with synchronized rotation in time even on cloudy days.





Diagram: “Social Program Isolated in Towers” vs. “Collected Social Programs Create Urban Interface”

Images & Diagrams: Steven Holl Architects; Watercolors: Steven Holl

Source: Bustler