Architecture studio Zaha Hadid Architects has been commissioned to design the Daxia Tower, a 210-meter-tall skyscraper in the Xi'an High-Tech Economic and Technological Development Zone in the city's southwest, one of China’s largest inland cities. Xi’an, with a population of around nine million, is historically important because as the country's ancient capital and historic eastern gateway of the Silk Road.

In recent years, it has grown significantly due to government support and the presence of universities and research institutions. Xian has developed a flourishing technology ecosystem attracting leading domestic and international corporations, particularly in fields like semiconductor manufacturing, robotics, aerospace, and bio-pharmaceuticals.

The new Daxia Tower by Zaha Hadid Architects for Daxia Group on Jingye Road is at the core of Xian's high-tech zone which has become a key driver of the city's economic growth.
The mixed-use building designed by Zaha Hadid Architects is set to be located on a 16,700 sq. m. site at the southeast corner of the Jingye Road and Zhangbawu Road intersection in the Yanta district of the city, linked to the metro system. The 210 m Daxia Tower will incorporate 127,220 sq. m of offices, retail, and ancillary facilities.

Pointing out the center of the business district, Daxia Tower emerges with a gently curving silhouette accentuated with patterned glazing and grand atriums that flood the interior with natural light. Creating a cascade of planted interior terraces, that echo mountainside waterfalls, these atriums offer stunning views of the historic city to the north and east and the burgeoning high-tech zone to the south and west.

Designed with data analytics and behavior modeling, the tower’s interiors prioritize adaptable and future-proofed workplaces, leveraging real-time analytics to create healthy and enjoyable environments that will enhance employees' individual and overall well-being.

Within Xian's temperate continental monsoon climate, Daxia Tower's design targets LEED Gold certification and the highest three-star rating of China's Green Building Program. Optimizing natural daylighting and ventilation using high-performance low-emissivity, unitized glazing with a thermal coating and insulated for low U-values to reduce energy demand and enhance efficiencies, the tower's responsive facade with integrated sensors will include photovoltaics to enable renewable energy generation to power various systems within the building.


Daxia Tower by Zaha Hadid Architects. Rendering by Atchain.

Incorporating natural ventilation, the large atriums will allow fresh air to circulate through the building. Planting on the many layers of terraces overlooking the atriums helps purify the air, reduce indoor pollutants, and foster a healthier indoor environment.

A rainwater harvesting system will collect and store rainwater as a supplementary source of non-potable water, while the recycling system will treat and reuse greywater to further reduce the building's water consumption.

A smart management system will continuously monitor and optimize energy consumption and environmental performance. Sensors and automation throughout the tower will recognize patterns in occupancy and adjust interior conditions accordingly, in addition to adapting to changing weather conditions to ensure maximum efficiency and occupants' comfort.

The tower's procurement and construction will prioritize the use of recycled and locally-produced materials from the city of Xian and surrounding Shaanxi province.

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Architects
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Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA). ZHA Design.- Patrik Schumacher.
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Design team
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ZHA Competition Project Directors.- Satoshi Ohashi, Paulo Flores.
ZHA Competition Associate.- Yang Jingwen.
ZHA Competition Project Architects.- Saman Dadgostar, Kai-Jui Tsao.
ZHA Competition Project Leads.- Aiste Dzikaraite, Feifei Fan.
ZHA Competition Team.- Billy Webb, Enoch Kolo, Felix Amiss, Hualing Jiang, Ignacio Garcia Martinez, Karina Linnsen, Liyuan Gao, Mingjia Zhang, Paul Joseph, Pittayapa Suriyapee, Sanxing Zhao, Siyu Liu, Tingyu Wang, Yuxuan Zhao.
ZHA Competition Sustainability Team.- Bahaa Alnassrallah, Carlos Bausa Martinez, Shibani Choudhury.
ZHA Competition Al Team.- Uli Blum, Lorena Espaillat Bencosme.
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Collaborators
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Competition Structural Engineers.- 广州容柏生建筑结构设计事务所(普通合化人)RBS.
Competition Facade Engineering: 阿法建筑设计咨询(上海 有限公司 RFR.
Competition LD): 中联西北工程设计研究院有限公司 China United Northwest Institute for Engineering Design & Research Co., Ltd.
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Dates
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August 2023.
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Location
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Southeast corner of the Jingye Road and Zhangbawu Road intersection in the Yanta district, Xi'an, China.
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Rendering
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Atchain.
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Zaha Hadid, (Bagdad, 31 October 1950 – Miami, 31 March 2016) founder of Zaha Hadid Architects, was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize (considered to be the Nobel Prize of architecture) in 2004 and is internationally known for both her theoretical and academic work.

Each of her dynamic and innovative projects builds on over thirty years of revolutionary exploration and research in the interrelated fields of urbanism, architecture and design. Hadid’s interest lies in the rigorous interface between architecture, landscape and geology as her practice integrates natural topography and human-made systems, leading to experimentation with cutting-edge technologies. Such a process often results in unexpected and dynamic architectural forms.

Education: Hadid studied architecture at the Architectural Association from 1972 and was awarded the Diploma Prize in 1977.

Teaching: She became a partner of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, taught at the AA with OMA collaborators Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, and later led her own studio at the AA until 1987. Since then she has held the Kenzo Tange Chair at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University; the Sullivan Chair at the University of Illinois, School of Architecture, Chicago; guest professorships at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg; the Knolton School of Architecture, Ohio and the Masters Studio at Columbia University, New York. In addition, she was made Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Fellow of the American Institute of Architecture and Commander of the British Empire, 2002. She is currently Professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria and was the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

Awards: Zaha Hadid’s work of the past 30 years was the subject of critically-acclaimed retrospective exhibitions at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2006, London’s Design Museum in 2007 and the Palazzo della Ragione, Padua, Italy in 2009. Her recently completed projects include the MAXXI Museum in Rome; which won the Stirling award in 2010. Hadid’s outstanding contribution to the architectural profession continues to be acknowledged by the most world’s most respected institutions. She received the prestigious ‘Praemium Imperiale’ from the Japan Art Association in 2009, and in 2010, the Stirling Prize – one of architecture’s highest accolades – from the Royal Institute of British Architects. Other recent awards include UNESCO naming Hadid as an ‘Artist for Peace’ at a ceremony in their Paris headquarters last year. Also in 2010, the Republic of France named Hadid as ‘Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ in recognition of her services to architecture, and TIME magazine included her in their 2010 list of the ‘100 Most Influential People in the World’. This year’s ‘Time 100’ is divided into four categories: Leaders, Thinkers, Artists and Heroes – with Hadid ranking top of the Thinkers category.

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Published on: August 4, 2023
Cite: ""Mountainside waterfalls" is the concept for the new Daxia Tower by Zaha Hadid Architects" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/mountainside-waterfalls-concept-new-daxia-tower-zaha-hadid-architects> ISSN 1139-6415
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