As China’s development and urbanization continues, property developers have begun to expand into new markets such as third and fourth-tier cities. Sales offices have become an important conduit for them to demonstrate their brand’s strength and design philosophy. These offices are not only community activity centers and lounge areas for client communication, but also a promotional window to attract more clients to buy properties. After most of the properties have been sold, however, the usefulness of these offices declines. The purpose of this project is to reconsider the special function of the sales office building, in hopes of making it more sustainable through design, by becoming a symbolic public building for the future community and city.
Firm Name: aoe ARCHITECTURE
Project Name: Heze Courtyard No.1 Sales Office
This project is situated at the intersection of Guangzhou Road and Minjiang Road in the Economic Development Zone of Heze City in Shandong. It will become the new CBD center of Heze. Due to its unique location, the project is expected to be a landmark building in the future development of this prefecture-level city. We hope, through the concept of humanity and sustainability, to express the city’s future yearning for a better life, and to provide to local residents an impressive public space.
The architectural concept is based on the artistic supremacism that reflected the social and technological changes of the 1920s, with the intention of expressing the mutual influence and interdependence between physical and virtual space in the digital age. In the digital age, many of today’s actions are performed in the virtual world. Therefore, the objects in the building are designed to float in an unstable state. Each object echoes a corresponding function in a unique form, including the entrance (horseshoe), model area (big camera lens), enterprise brand (blue stone), office area (orange-coloured box), etc.
Objects floating in the air form a rich and hierarchical space, welcoming the surrounding audiences with an open dynamic posture. Some of the objects collide with the glass surface and leave traces to form a unique architectural image. The building façade is made of ultra-white glass which makes objects, spaces, material and colour from the interior visible to the outside space.
Stainless steel metal panels with different reflectivity are used in the space, giving different objects a variety of colour and forming a rich interaction between people and space, objects, light, images, colours and materials. Visitors will experience different changes of light and shadow at every moment.
As a reflection of the real world, this project attempts to look beyond a single function of the sales office through improved design, so that it can enhance the quality of public life and lead people strive for a better future and make a positive contribution to the community.
aoe ARCHITECTURE
aoe is an architecture and interior design studio based in Beijing, China. Its award-winning work spans residential, commercial, hospitality, educational, civic, corporate, mixed-use and urban planning markets. Underpinned by a creative intelligence-led philosophy, aoe intervenes in the social environment to create vibrant human-city spaces of the future. Responsive to modern facets of human life, aoe’s design solutions fuse science and technology with the arts and culture, resulting in an inspired and much-needed reinvention of urban living – all the while, respecting local cultures, nature, and different ways of life.
aoe’s director is Larry Wen, an architect whose international reputation is built on over thirty years of service to the industry. Larry studied at Cal Poly Pomona University and has since led several renowned global design companies, among them Aedas, Woods Bagot and Aecom. He has directed numerous well-known projects – including Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University Administrative Information Building, Guiyang Tianyi International Plaza and Qingdao Jinmao Central Europe International City – picking up a string of awards along the way.