OMA conceived the Tencent Beijing Headquarters in China as a small vertical city to host the expansion of its digital workforce into square-shaped floating volume of 7 floors

The new Tencent HQ is located in Zhonguancun Software Park in Beijing, is divided into 9 quadrants with its own core that can function independently, designing density without resorting to building a skyscraper.
Tencent Beijing Headquarters was designed by OMA as a volume that stretches out horizontally, with the exceptionally large floorplan of 180 x 180m.

To reduce the building's visual impact, its form is softened by the removal of its corners, which mark entrance points, together with large geometric insets on façade.

At the center of the campus, triangular prisms are excavated, creating courtyards that bring variety and daylight, ventilation and nature into the interior.
 
 

Project description by OMA

Tencent’s new headquarters in Beijing accommodates thousands of employees. Instead of seeking soaring heights to host the expansion of the digital workforce, OMA designed a square-shaped floating volume of merely 7 floors that stretches out horizontally, with the exceptionally large floorplan of 180 x 180m.

The new Tencent HQ is conceived as a small vertical city, divided into 9 quadrants with each their own core that can function independently. A web of intersecting ‘streets’ connects all cores and at the same time brings hierarchy and legibility. Each floorplan is sub-divided into zones which have a diverse programming - work, education, play - and a variety of types of spaces for these different purposes. Visual connections between zones create an awareness of the activities taking place throughout the campus. Outside a net of paths efficiently connects the quadrants, interspersed by a mosaic of green spaces for all sorts of outdoor activities.

At the center of the campus, triangular prisms are excavated, creating courtyards that bring variety and daylight, ventilation and nature into the interior. At the perimeter the floor plate steps down, shaping an informal peripheral ring with communal spaces. To offset the inertness of the square volume, the corners of the building are cut off, defining the entrances, and the top floor is setback creating a wide outdoor panoramic.

Tencent Headquarters is a city in a singular building – the campus allows for unique manipulations not possible within the limits of typical traditional offices and neither effective in a dispersed urban setting. A new space emerges that celebrates the seemingly infinite Bürolandschaft with moments of respite and surprise.

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Architects
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OMA. Partner in charge.- Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten. Associate.- Adam Frampton and Ravi Kamisetti. Project leader.- Patrizia Zobernig.
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Project team
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Kathleen Cayetano, Vanessa Chan, Hin Cheung, Yin Ho, Jedidiah Lau, Kwan Ho Li, Vivien Liu, Kai Sun Luk, Kevin Mak, Cristina Martin de Juan, Arthas Qian, Saul Smeding, Benny Tam, Arthas Qian, Hannah Zhang, Casey Wang with Helen Chen, Jocelyn Chiu and Stella Tong.
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Collaborators
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Chinese co-architect.- BIAD. Structure, HVAC/MEP/Electric, Traffic, BIM.- BIAD, AECOM. Interiors.- Woods Bagot. Landscape.- Inside Outside, Maya Lin Studio and Margie Ruddick Landscape. Facade.- VS-A, Beijing Zizhou Architecture Curtain Wall Design Consulting. Broadcast.- Radio, Film & TV Design and Research Institute. Lighting.- Beijing Ning Field Lighting Design Corp., Ltd. Fire engineering.- Tianjin Fire Research Institute of M.E.M., China Academy of Building Research Institute of Building Fire Research. Acoustics.- DHV. Sustainability.- Dad Daring. Kitchen Consultant.- Compass.
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Client
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Tencent
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Dates
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2019
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Photography
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Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international practice operating within the traditional boundaries of architecture and urbanism. AMO, a research and design studio, applies architectural thinking to domains beyond. OMA is led by eight partners – Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long, and Managing Partner-Architect David Gianotten – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. OMA-designed buildings currently under construction are the renovation of Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin, The Factory in Manchester, Hangzhou Prism, the CMG Times Center in Shenzhen and the Simone Veil Bridge in Bordeaux.

OMA’s completed projects include Taipei Performing Arts Centre (2022), Audrey Irmas Pavilion in Los Angeles (2020), Norra Tornen in Stockholm (2020), Axel Springer Campus in Berlin (2020), MEETT Toulouse Exhibition and Convention Centre (2020), Galleria in Gwanggyo (2020), WA Museum Boola Bardip (2020), nhow RAI Hotel in Amsterdam (2020), a new building for Brighton College (2020), and Potato Head Studios in Bali (2020). Earlier buildings include Fondazione Prada in Milan (2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), De Rotterdam (2013), CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012), Casa da Música in Porto (2005), and the Seattle Central Library (2004).

AMO often works in parallel with OMA's clients to fertilize architecture with intelligence from this array of disciplines. This is the case with Prada: AMO's research into identity, in-store technology, and new possibilities of content-production in fashion helped generate OMA's architectural designs for new Prada epicenter stores in New York and Los Angeles. In 2004, AMO was commissioned by the European Union to study its visual communication, and designed a colored "barcode" flag, combining the flags of all member states, which was used during the Austrian presidency of the EU. AMO has worked with Universal Studios, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, Heineken, Ikea, Condé Nast, Harvard University and the Hermitage. It has produced Countryside: The Future, a research exhibited at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, including Public Works (2012), Cronocaos (2010), and The Gulf (2006); and for Fondazione Prada, including When Attitudes Become Form (2012) and Serial and Portable Classics (2015). AMO, with Harvard University, was responsible for the research and curation of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale and its publication Elements. Other notable projects are Roadmap 2050, a plan for a Europe-wide renewable energy grid; Project Japan, a 720-page book on the Metabolism architecture movement (Taschen, 2010); and the educational program of Strelka Institute in Moscow.

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Rem Koolhaas was born in Rotterdam in 1944. He began his career as a journalist, working for the Haagse Post, and as a set-designer in the Netherlands and Hollywood. He beganHe frequented the Architectural Association School in London and studied with Oswald Mathias Ungers at Cornell University. In 1978, he wrote Delirious New York: a retroactive manifesto for Manhattan, which has become a classic of contemporary architectural theory. In 1975 – together with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madelon Vriesendorp – he founded OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture).

The most important works by Koolhaas and OMA, from its foundation until the mid-1990s, include the Netherlands Dance Theatre at The Hague, the Nexus Housing at Fukuoka in Japan, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Grand Palais of Euralille and Lille, the Villa dall’Ava, the Très Grande Bibliothèque, the Jussieu library in Paris, the ZKM in Karlsruhe and the Seattle Public Library.

Together with Koolhaas’s reflections on contemporary society, these buildings appear in his second book, S,M,L,XL (1995), a volume of 1376 pages written as though it were a “novel about architecture”. Published in collaboration with the Canadian graphic designer, Bruce Mau, the book contains essays, manifestos, cartoons and travel diaries.

In 2005, with Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman, he was the founder to the prestigious Volume magazine, the result of a collaboration with Archis (Amsterdam), AMO and C-lab (Columbia University NY).

His built work includes the Qatar National Library and the Qatar Foundation Headquarters (2018), Fondation Galeries Lafayette in Paris (2018), Fondazione Prada in Milan (2015/2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), the headquarters for China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing (2012), Casa da Musica in Porto (2005), Seattle Central Library (2004), and the Netherlands Embassy in Berlin (2003). Current projects include the Taipei Performing Arts Centre, a new building for Axel Springer in Berlin, and the Factory in Manchester.

Koolhaas directed the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale and is a professor at Harvard University, where he directs The Project on the City, a research programme on changes in urban conditions around the world. This programme has conducted research on the delta of the Pearl River in China (entitled Great Leap Forward) and on consumer society (The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping). Taschen Verlag has published the results. Now is preparing a major exhibition for the Guggenheim museum to open in 2019 entitled Countryside: Future of the World.

Among the awards he has won in recent years, we mention here the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize (2000), the Praemium Imperiale (2003), the Royal Gold Medal (2004) and the Mies Van Der Rohe prize (2005). In 2008, Time mentioned him among the 100 most influential people of the planet.

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David Gianotten is the Managing Partner – Architect of OMA globally, responsible for the overall organizational and financial management, business strategy, and growth of the company in all markets, in addition to his own architectural portfolio.

As Partner-in-Charge, David currently oversees the design and construction of various projects including the Taipei Performing Arts Centre; the Prince Plaza Building in Shenzhen; the KataOMA resort in Bali; the New Museum for Western Australia in Perth; the masterplan of Rotterdam’s Feyenoord City and the design of the new 63,000 seat Stadium Feijenoord; and Amsterdam’s Bajes Kwartier, a conversion of a large 1960s prison complex into a new neighborhood with 1,350 apartments.

David led the design and realization of the MPavilion 2017 in Melbourne and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange headquarters. He was also responsible for the end stages of the CCTV headquarters in Beijing. David’s work has been published worldwide and several of his projects have received international awards, including the 2017 Melbourne Design Awards and the CTBUH Awards in 2013. David gives lectures around the world mainly related to his projects and on topics such as the future development of the architectural profession, the role of context within projects, and speed and risk in architecture.

David joined OMA in 2008, launched OMA's Hong Kong office in 2009, and became partner in 2010. He became OMA’s global Managing Partner – Architect in 2015 upon his return to the Netherlands after having led OMA’s portfolio in Asia for seven years. Before joining OMA, he was Principal Architect at SeARCH in the Netherlands.

David studied Architecture and Architectural Engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology, where he has also served as a professor in the Architectural Urban Design and Engineering department since 2016. Additionally, he serves on the board of the Netherlands Asia Honors Summer School.

 
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