Architecture firm MVRDV has won the competition to design two buildings in the Tianfu Software Park in Chengdu, including a 150-meter office high-rise that provides the dramatic centerpiece of the campus. One corner of this tower is dedicated to a full-height atrium with cascading greenery that serves as a key functional element of the building’s climate and ventilation system.
The project is developed by Chengdu High-Tech Investment Group, and will be home to companies focused on the development of 5G, AI, big data, Satellite Internet, and other high-tech interests. Located in the southeast of Chengdu, it lies on the boundary between Chengdu’s urban expansion and a hilly rural area. This meeting point between the city and nature, along with the Chengdu government’s “park city” initiative, formed a crucial starting point for the design, which introduces greenery extending from adjacent green space up and into the buildings.
The office high-rise is shaped to optimize the efficiency of the floor plates and maximize views of the mountains to the east. The atrium forms a semi-outdoor space: it is open at its base, where swooping lines gradually merge with a shopping podium enclosed by a mesh façade. This allows it to contribute to the building’s climate strategy, with the atrium acting as a buffer zone that allows passive cross-ventilation through the mesh and via openable panels in the opposite façades while reducing solar gain within the office spaces. This shades the terraces and helps to reduce the cooling requirements of the office spaces, in turn, reducing the building’s energy use.
Also designed by MVRDV for the campus is a four-story cultural center containing an art museum, conference hall, library, and exhibition space with a faceted sloping form that invites visitors to climb both its green roof and its terraced interior. The shape of the Culture Center follows the triangular outline of its site. The different programs are stacked in a stepped arrangement to form terraces that are oriented toward the park. A green roof of faceted triangular panels covers the terraced interior to create a semi-outdoor atrium space that wraps up and over the interior spaces. At various points on the edges of the roof, the panels are lifted up to form glazed clerestory windows, allowing daylight into the interior. The roof is a small park in itself, equipped with public plazas, a continuous pathway, and lush green planters that extend the landscape on top of the sloping building.
Other buildings within the Tianfu Software Park Phase II started construction at the end of 2023, with the two buildings designed by MVRDV to follow.
Learn more about this project at MVRDV.