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01. Project Overview

The Alibaba Cloud Center occupies a complete city block. The building's volume ratio and height are controlled by planning guidelines to be more suitable for walking experience. The building is enclosed on three sides and open to the bay, continuing the sense of order of the street. However, the building interface is not rigid. The building blocks change the scale and skyline of the existing city through "stacking". The stacked volume breaks down the large-scale building into seemingly randomly stacked square boxes, which dissolves the building form into the urban background. On the one hand, the small-scale stacking is consistent with Alibaba's concept of serving small and medium-sized enterprises. On the other hand, this interesting and rich form is more approachable and more friendly than the elite high-rise office buildings.

02. Partition and functional layout

The architects are obviously not only satisfied with the dissolution of the form, but also try to integrate the space within the plot with the urban space more closely in terms of spatial processing. Different from the traditional practice of "dividing the land for self-government", the architects try to introduce the urban environment into the plot. To this end, the design extracts five elements (cross corridor, courtyard, street wall, large outside and small inside, arcade) as the project's response to the urban environment. Although the building defines the visual interface between the street and the plot in the form of enclosure, the cross corridor is used to bring people and cars into the base, so that the plot is integrated into the city at the level of physical connection. Inside and outside the plot, the activities of pedestrians in the public space are continuous. The street interfaces on the east and west sides also create gray spaces through the traditional "arcade" form, blurring the boundary from the street into the building.

∆ Building location map

ΔStacked volumes and staggered platforms are intertwined

∆ Flexible corridors free up ground space

The public space in the building is no longer an internal space exclusively for office workers. The aerial path composed of rooftop platforms and corridors takes the city square as the starting point, organizing the city and the building together. The path is rich in functions, just like a city street, with many activities. These spaces are fully open to the outside world, with a wide view, and also become a transitional space between the private office space inside the building and the urban space.

∆ First floor plan

∆ Rich volume changes form landscape

∆ The boundary between the building and the city is combined with the water system to form a transparent and open walking space

03. Conclusion

With the advent of the information age, people's demands for office buildings go beyond efficiency and functionality, hoping to experience meaningful life scenes in them. The place spirit born in such an open and free office space brings a sense of belonging and identity to the company and the characteristics of the times facing the future. Alibaba Cloud Center currently uses only two of the four towers as R&D office space. The other two towers have introduced research-based companies on the Alibaba platform. Alibaba Cloud Center is no longer a building used exclusively by a company. It has become more mixed, more organic, and more vivid, thus becoming a positive symbol for promoting a new era.

Project Archives

Project Name: Alibaba Group Cloud Computing R&D Center (Alibaba Cloud Center)

Developed by: Alibaba Group

Project address: Keyuan North Road, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong

Land area: 16292 square meters

Building area: 110,435 square meters

Building height: 69 meters

Architectural Design: CCDI International

Whole process design: CCDI International

Design/Construction: 2011/2015

Structural form: reinforced concrete frame-core tube structure

Architectural Photography: Fang Jian