Zhenghe Global Tower | INUCE • Dirk U. Moench

Located by the shores of Fuzhou‘s Min River and right next to Gushan Bridge, Zhenghe Global Financial Center is soon to be the new Headquarters Tower of the Australian-Chinese public trade company Zhenghe Global. Build upon a site close to 10000 square metres in size and with a gross floor area of over 55000 square metres it will provide valuable Grade A office space for more than 30 domestic and foreign banks, securities firms, insurance companies and other related financial institutions expected to settle on the city‘s Financial Street. Some of the tower‘s predominant features include:

The outer shell: A building‘s facade is its namecard! In close exchange with Zhenghe Global‘s executives and fully aware of the end-customers need to uphold an image of stability and endurance, we devised a facade system which conveys a commitment to highest value and quality from the overall scale down to the detail, whilst providing each unit with a a 100% unobstructed view onto the spectacular surrounding landscape with its rivers and mountains. As a direct translation of these aspirations into the physical, the building‘s outer shell is extensively clad with snow white marble, the most sophisticated material employed in architecture. While the ground floor is conceived as a solid plinth and can therefore be mostly covered in stone, the office floors above need to be dissolved in glass. Marble is instead applied onto horizontal fins which protrude above each floor and provide shading and texture to the facade.

The circulation: Tenants and visitors enter Zhenghe Global through a monumental 45 metres wide and 15 metres deep Lobby space facing the main access at the North of the site, or alternatively through a small sub lobby in the South. The lobby in turn leads visitors into the quartered building core. Other than standard highrise cores with only one central hallway, the quartered core allows visitors exiting the elevators to walk in all four directions of the office floor, avoiding thus the creation of non - visible and hardly accessible back offices - at Zhenghe Global all units are front offices!

The floor plate: Zhenghe‘s typical floor plate features an extremely high floor efficiency with 76.1% of its area being useable space. The excentricity of the quartered core allows for a perfect allocation of space, providing wide office bays in the North (mountain view) and South (river view) and minimizing unit sizes in the East and West, where the tower will face its neighbours. Two basement floors offer a total of 280 car parking lots. A set of VIP elevators reserved for company executives connects the parking areas directly and comfortably with the office above; visitors and non-executives must first enter the lobby space and bypass the reception gates as a safety precaution.