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Type: Shopping mall with office buildings Location: Beijing Client: Huihuang Real Estate Ltd. Team: John van de Water, Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers with Chen Song, Jiang Xiao Fei, Guo Zhi Fang. Jia Yuan, Xin Hong, Mo Lisheng, Yang Zhong Hui, Zen Zhao Ying, Yuan Duo, Ma Qin, Qin Qin, Zhang Rui, Su Yue, Wu Yun, Zhang Yu Hua, Lu Ming, Jiang Nan Collaborator / associate: HAYA architects Floor area / size: 180.000 sqm First design: 2007-10-21 Start building: 2005-11-01 Completion: 2007-09-01 Status: realized

The Huihuang International Plaza is a building complex of 180.000m2 in size and accommodates shopping, offices, residential, conference, a hotel and parking. Four of the five towers were initially designed as office towers. Because of changing market conditions, three of the four had to change into residential towers over night. As a clause, the design had to be able to change back to offices before the building was completed. To anticipate on ever changing requirements, an architectonic concept is developed in which residential blurs with office. This ‘blurring’ makes both residential and office in representation possible. ‘Blurring’ is achieved by a changing relieve between stone and glass; the foundations of the buildings being more stone, the tops more glass. This pattern aims to visually dissolve the program, as well as the height of the towers. The architectonic concept is strengthened by economics: the higher the floor, the more view is offered, the higher the market value can be.

Type: Office and commercial space Location: Beijing Client: Golden Star Real Estate Team: John van de Water, Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers with Wopke Tjipke Schaafstal, Bobby de Graaf, Chen Song, Guo Zhi Fang, Jia Yuan, Jao Peng, Xin Hong, and Li Jia Collaborator / associate: HAYA architects Floor area / size: 60.000 sqm First design: 2007-05-01 Start building: 2007-11-01 Status: under construction

Twist is a twin-building located near the East 5th ring road. The building will contain mostly service apartments. These apartments can accommodate start-up companies, which makes that the building has to blend between apartment and office building. The design-strategy follows three steps: projecting a typical NS orientated Beijing slab, rotating and finally twisting the slab in order to optimize daylight and view. The twisted slab is taken as a starting point to manipulate the buildings massing proportions, following the analogy that people prefer to live in a tower over living in a slab. Towards the new city street, the building will follow a smaller scale to enclose a square. Towards the South side of the site, the buildings will take on a more urban scale. To increase the diversity of the apartments, floors are proposed with three different window-heights.  Metaphorically, the twin building resembles two dynamic Dragons encompassing a shining pearl.

Location: ZPARK Beijing Client: Beijing Century Real Estate Team: John van de Water with Chen Song, Wopke Schaafstal, Lui Gui Feng, Li Gui Feng and Bart Reuser, Marij Floor area / size: 55.000 m2 First design: 2007-01-01 Start building: august 2007

2007-11-10 Construction at full speed 2007-08-07 Construction started

This IBM research-office building is situated in a new, green IT-development zone in North-west Beijing. The given site is elliptical and according to the urban plan, buildings are to be single entities. IBM aims to provide a healthy working environment, as part of their vision to provide a productive environment.

To maximize the building area, the building envelop follows the site restrictions and therefore is elliptically shaped. To stimulate a healthy environment, the building aims to maximize its relations with its green surrounding landscape.  

As such, the building consists of one two-story ellipse that rests on four smaller ellipses. The top two floors contain offices; the collective program is concentrated in the smaller ellipses.

The meandering space between the ground floor ellipses opens up towards the surrounding landscapes and accommodates the central lobby and three internal gardens.

Type: Office building Client: IPMMC Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers with Jurriaan Hillerström, Remco van Gijzen en David Spierings Collaborator / associate: Rudy Uytenhaak Floor area / size: 2.500 sqm First design: 2006-05-12

This design is based on a simple and very flexible setup: a solid four-bay-wide building with the closed office programme organized in the two narrower exterior bays and a wider middle section that is available for an open programme.

Removing floors in the right places of the middle section creates vertical connections between all of the floors and allows the light to find its way deep into the building.

All special functions, such as the entrance, the concept department and the cafeteria, can be situated in the open middle section to create relations and views in the centre of the building. 

The heart of the building is an open space, a diagonal plaza over several floors. The storeys will function as a huge staircase, where people can meet and see each other arrive.

Type: High-tech office and production space Location: Lufthansa Area, Chaoyang District, Beijing, Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Water, Joost Lemmens, Chen Song, Wang Bo and Zang Rui Floor area / size: 350.000 sqm Competition: 2005 invited competition, second prize First design: 2004-12-12 Status: Preliminary Design

Watchdata is a relatively young IT-company specializing in data security. The 62.000sqm new headquarters will accommodate the company’s general office departments, research labs and workshops.

Given the young age of the company and the enormous growth of the workforce, the design aims to create the conditions for meaningful communication between the individual employees and departments.

The program is organized according to a clear hierarchy: representative program faces south, factories face north. The different functions and departments are connected on the first floor by means of an ‘interaction-floor’. All public functions are concentrated on this floor, making it the company’s main square.

The ‘interaction floor’ encloses four internal courtyards that are adorned by two special pavilions: a meeting diamond and a sports-pavilion. The companies ‘W’-logo can be seen again in the elevation and construction; this is where logo, architecture and construction synthesize.