Silver Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2022
Tp-Link Hangzhou R and D Center
by Zhe Wang
- A' Design Award 2022 Silver Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2022
- CLIENT: Beijing Sza Architectural Design Consultant
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 17,620
- Verification code 1BF2AB187C · Verify this award
About Tp-Link Hangzhou R and D Center
Tp-Link Hangzhou is a research and development center in the high-technology zone of Binjiang District, Hangzhou, China. The twelve-story building combines open office areas, research space, meeting rooms, lecture halls, canteen and cafe areas, and a rooftop garden. Two slabs of different heights form a front courtyard facing the main street. Between the slabs, a transparent atrium built with a suspended-cable structure and ultra-white laminated glass connects the floors. Boxes and platforms placed in the atrium encourage meeting and communication.
Zhe Wang of SZA Architects's Tp-Link Hangzhou R and D Center exemplifies contemporary institutional architecture's capacity to synthesize functional program with poetic spatial experience, positioning itself within the lineage of high-tech and late-modernist traditions that celebrate transparency, structural legibility, and the expressive potential of industrial materials. The building's glass curtain wall system demonstrates exceptional technical refinement, with carefully proportioned mullion profiles creating a precise grid that organizes the facade while allowing the interior life of the research facility to animate the exterior presence. The architect's decision to carve a monumental double-height void within the building mass serves multiple experiential purposes: it introduces natural light deep into the floor plates, creates a dramatic arrival sequence visible from the exterior plaza, and provides a generous communal space that encourages the interdisciplinary exchange essential to innovative research environments. The suspended constellation of pendant lights transforms this utilitarian atrium into a contemplative chamber, their scattered arrangement suggesting both the randomness of creative discovery and the ordered precision of scientific inquiry. The vertical fin elements adorning the facade function as solar control devices while simultaneously establishing a rhythmic visual texture that modulates the building's scale and provides depth to what might otherwise read as a flat glass surface. This interplay between pragmatic performance and aesthetic effect characterizes the most accomplished institutional architecture, where every element serves multiple purposes without sacrificing visual coherence. The twilight hour captured in this documentation reveals the building's transformative capacity, as interior warmth radiates outward through the transparent envelope, inverting the daytime relationship where the facade reflects its surroundings. Viewers might contemplate how architecture shapes not merely physical space but the culture of intellectual endeavor within.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- A fast-growing Chinese manufacturer of computer networking products, TP-LINK East China Headquarter in Hangzhou, is a 26700sqm, 12 stories creative office building that offers a mixture of open office area, research and development space, and amenity programs (meeting rooms, lecture halls, canteen and cafe areas, rooftop garden, and etc.) designed to foster collaboration. It is important that the project has a high-tech appearance to respond to its corporate neighbors.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Concrete Construction/Concrete Frame system
The enclosure materials, such as curtain wall glass and aluminum, stone cladding are from local manufacture.
Site Area:9861sqm
Gross Area:39556.3 sqm
The above-ground building area is about 26700sqm - Tags
- Architecture design, R and D Center, Technology, Garden Office
- Production Technology
- To achieve a desirable transparent appearance of the atrium and provide a high-quality indoor environment, the atrium curtain wall structure and glass type are chosen carefully. The atrium curtain wall is composed of a suspended-cable structure and ultra-white laminated glass to meet the design goal. The glass on the north and south slab building facades is insulated with higher reflectivity Low-E ratio. In addition, the facade system is designed with vertical aluminum panels with operable windows in-between.
- Design Challenge
- The Hangzhou TP-LINK R and D Center showcases design practice that highly integrates architectural concepts with a corporate brand. The design team tries to think out of the box regarding future high-tech R and D center space planning and building imagery and build a user-centered R and D Center for the future. To accomplish a building space guiding and inspiring future use, the space planning aims at providing flexibility and efficiency for users.
- Project Duration
- The project is located in the high-tech zone of Hangzhou Binjiang District, China.
Design Period: 2014-2017
Completion Time：2020 - Operation Flow
- This project deliberately gave up constructing the building height up to the height limit as most clients would do for the sake of landmark. Instead, it is comprised of two slabs with different heights and forms a front courtyard facing the main street. The transparent atrium also provides a clear visual connection with the regional arterial road as the urban space axis. Therefore, the project intends to provide a more friendly human-scale frontage and a more welcoming urban interface.
- Research
- As a result of meeting the user's needs of interaction, a series of functional boxes, platforms embedded in the atrium encourage encountering and communicating. The design team was successful in creating a unique common area that is highly integrating of transparency, openness, interactivity, and adaptability. The atrium is not simply a container, a physical connection, a visual linkage, it becomes the LINK of team cooperation, the LINK promoting equal, free and open communication.
- Inspiration
- The design of Hangzhou TP-LINK R and D Center is inspired by the local urban landscape culture of Hangzhou, aiming to create a three-dimensional office garden. Create an informal, low-density natural environment for users to perform personal relaxation, contact, and communication. The exterior of the north and south buildings is solid and concise, while the atrium is transparent and flexible. Let the architectural space no longer be just a static container, but an engine that promotes equal, free and open communication.
- Image Credits
- Photograph：Jin, Weiqi
Video: BEIJING SZA ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN CONSULTANT
Colors of Tp-Link Hangzhou R and D Center
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