Tencent Seafront Towers

Integrating 15 Façade Types Into A Single System

When one of the world’s largest internet companies designed their new corporate headquarters, they pushed the envelope in design and form. The Tencent Seafront Towers in Hi-tech Park in the Nanshan District of Shenzhen features a pair of office towers connected with three skybridges to foster the feel of a suburban tech campus within a high-rise environment. The towers nearly quadruple Tencent’s current office space and accommodate an additional 12,000 employees.

We provided façade engineering services to NBBJ / Tongji LDI, which progressed from concept design to design development in only seven months.

Highlights

• The façade design called for 15 skin systems, including unitized curtain walls, long-span glass walls, ETFE pneumatic cushion atria, and cable-net walls.
• The façade design was developed to handle water and wind loads for a typhoon zone.
• The saw-tooth shaped box panels, a notable architectural feature, cover the façade and extend outward by up to 1.5 meters from the building structure.
• The box panels create a textured aesthetic and support the project’s sustainability objectives by providing self-shading to reduce energy consumption during the summer.
• We use Rhino software to design the box frames and ensure they were easy to fabricate, assemble, hoist and install.