Gianni Botsford Architect designs a glass tower in China with a staggered profile and aluminum mullions

Architect: Gianni Botsford ArchitectsLocation: Chengdu, ChinaCompletion Date: 2023

Gianni Botsford Architects, a London-based practice, has designed a new office tower for OPPO, a Chinese electronics manufacturer. Located south of Chengdu’s city center, the new tower anchors a larger development called the Singapore Sichuan Hi Tech Innovation Park. The facade of the tower is clad in glass curtain wall with distinctive aluminum mullions to emphasize verticality.

Gianni Botsford Architects won the design for the tower in a 2014 competition. This is the firm’s first project in China and largest completed building to-date. In order to carry out their design, Gianni Botsford Architects collaborated with RWJu Partners, a Taiwanese firm with offices in China.

Gianni Botsford, founder of the eponymous firm, shared that the team was able to design the building’s form with relative regulatory freedom.

“There were no setback requirements,” he said. “We had the footprint where the building had to be, a floor area we had to achieve, a height restriction, as well as some fire regulations, but mostly we were free to develop the form ourselves.”

To avoid designing a generic rectangular tower, the mass of the building was broken up into six component volumes that are staggered in height. Because of this geometry, the appearance of the tower changes depending upon perspective. If facing the tower head on, it appears perfectly rectangular, while a view of its profile reveals the staggered volumes.

To meet requirements for a 30 percent opaque facade, Gianni Botsford Architects introduced aluminum mullions to the curtain wall system, providing shade and emphasizing the verticality of the tower. The mullions also contribute to the visual complexity of the building. “From some angles it looks almost completely opaque, from others it is completely transparent,” added Botsford.

A canopy above the entrance demonstrates an early facade concept. Initially, the architects designed a curtain wall system with segments of glass and mullion which would step in and out across the elevation. Though this design was scrapped across the majority of the building, it remains above the entrance.

In plan, the articulation of the six staggered volumes creates office spaces that project outward from the tower. Botsford described these as “corner rooms across the floorplate.” Additionally, the relatively shallow depth of each floorplate allows for ample light penetration.

Atop each of the staggered volumes is a space that the architects call the “lantern space.” These triple height levels are designed to hold events and provide sweeping views of the tower’s surroundings.

In total, the OPPO Technology and Research Centre provides office space for over 5,000 of the companies engineers and staff. The development comes at a time of sharp growth for the company, which has risen to become one of the most popular smartphone manufacturers in China. To support this growth, the company has rapidly expanded its office portfolio, including a new headquarter building in Shenzhen designed by Zaha Hadid Architects.