Here is REX‘s proposal for two of China’s major financial institutions, CLC and MSFL, which looks to consolidate their new headquarters within a single site at Shenzhen’s CDB. The program includes office space, operations halls, multi-purpose rooms, boutique, retail, high-end dining, cafeterias, gyms, gallery, executive club, shared lobby, and parking.

The two towers are shifted to make the best possible day-lighting relationships between them and their neighbors, and are sheathed in vertical fins of aluminum (CLC) and stone (MSFL) for self-shading and glare control. The resulting towers combine the clients’ desire to project the image of elegance, responsibility, and stability with their wish to stimulate innovation, creativity, and public engagement.

To create the desired typological duality in each building,each structure’s pair of concrete cores holds aloft a “launch pad” truss that supports a conventional high-rise gravity framing system and conventional office plans.

The launch pad trusses free the lower levels from normative structural constraints associated with high-rise construction. Hence, retail and collective functions can become an “ant farm” of highly individuated attractors.

via ArchDaily