Tall & Urban News

At the American Institute of Architects (AIA)—Middle East’s annual End of Year Conference, a global architecture conference, PEI Architects will debut their completed design for a five-building, mixed-use waterfront headquarters in China’s Hunan province. It will become a highly visible new landmark for the growing city of Changsha along the Xiang River.

The new, 1.14 million-square-foot (106,000 square-meter), mixed-use complex includes five separate buildings with panoramic river views, all set atop a low podium with a weaving esplanade and open spaces. The development is the new operations headquarters for Sanxiang Bank, SANY Group’s commercial banking venture, and the design nods to the capital city’s history of Xiang River maritime trade, which made Changsha a center of rice and tea commerce through the 1800s.   

With a low podium weaving through the base of five distinct buildings, the continuous development is unified through curvilinear geometries that are as compelling from a pedestrian point of view as they are from a distance. The rhythmic series of three similar south towers form curved rooflines at escalating heights, for example, while a soaring illuminated arch defines the view of the central circular building from the ground.

At the north end of the site stands the main building — Sanxiang Bank headquarters — rising 540 feet (164.6 meters) with a rotated, bowed facade framed by geometrical outlines meant to project stability and solidity.