Architecture firm, Foster + Partners has completed the first office tower in the newly regenerated Suhewan area, facing to Huangpu River and the Pudong area of Shanghai. The Suhe Centre for China Resources Land forms the centrepiece of the Suhewan East Urban Complex, which introduces a rich mix of functions to the predominantly residential area. The 200-metre, 42-storey tower is part of the city’s vision to draw development towards the eastern quarter.

The Suhe Centre has obtained LEED Platinum certification and has a Green Building 2 Star rating. This is due to a comprehensive sustainability strategy which includes recycling rainwater for irrigation, intelligent systems for optimising the indoor environment and air quality monitoring, bicycle parking and charging spaces.
The building designed by Foster + Partners is situated alongside a new urban public green area and Shanghai Suhe Centre MixC, with excellent connections to Line 10 Tiantong Road metro station, acting as a catalyst for bringing people and new businesses to the area. The expressed structure of the tower draws on the industrial aesthetic of the historical Zhejiang Road Bridge and nearby warehouse buildings. The tower’s dark glazing reduces reflective glare and contrasts with the stainless-steel structural frame, which has been pulled away from the corners to maximise views out.
 
“The Suhe Centre plays a central role in activating Suhewan and creating a vibrant new piece of the city. The tower has been designed to enhance wellbeing, with plenty of natural light and open, column free workspaces. It offers great views of the Jing An district, the Historical Bund, Pudong Lujiazui and the Huangpu and Suhe rivers. Its flexible floorplates allow for a range of different layouts to support contemporary ways of working.”
Gerard Evenden, Head of Studio, Foster + Partners.

Undulating wall panels inside the Tower lobby visually elongate the 11-metre-tall lobby space, creating a grand sense of arrival for the building’s occupants and visitors. Daylight filters through louvres above the entrance canopy to produce dancing shadows across the walls and floor. A unique reception desk is imprinted with a historic map of Suhe River, to commemorate the history of the site.


Suhe Centre by Foster + Partners. Photograph by Zhurunzi.

The lower levels of the tower capture views of the park to the west. As the building rises above the surrounding low-rise residential fabric it opens up to stunning 360-degree panoramic views. Every corner of the tower is a full-height glass space that frames a unique view of the city.

The column-free, flexible office floorplates have been designed to suit a variety of layouts, from single to multiple tenancies. Every level has detachable floor slabs to allow for connections between them. Along the western façade, the middle section of the building is recessed to allow natural light to flood the office spaces with a row of scenic lifts located within this recess to maximise views of the park and river.
 
“It has been a great privilege to design the first office tower in Suhewan. We have worked closely with China Resources Land to create a landmark building that offers truly modern workspaces which prioritise city and park views, comfort and flexibility. The Suhe Centre is an exciting new addition to the city and an integral part of their vision to bring new business to the eastern quarter.”
Emily Phang, Senior Partner, Foster + Partners.

More information

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Architects
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Foster + Partners.
Collaborating Architect.- ECADI.
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Collaborators
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Structural Engineer.- Arup.
Quantity Surveyor.- CR Client.
Lighting Engineer.- Arup.
Landscape Architect.- MELK.
Additional Consultants.- Shanghai Construction No.1 Group Meinhardt.
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Area
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10,067m².
Height.- 205.6m.
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Dates
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Design.-2016.
Construction start.- 2018
Completed.- 2022.
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Location
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Suhewan area of Shanghai, China.
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Photography
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Norman Foster is considered by many to be the most prominent architect in Britain. He won the 1999 Pritzker Architecture Prize and the 2009 Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes Prize.

Lord Foster rebuilt the Reichstag as a new German Parliament in Berlin and designed a contemporary Great Court for the British Museum. He linked St. Paul's Cathedral to the Tate Modern with the Millennium Bridge, a steel footbridge across the Thames. He designed the Hearst Corporation Building in Manhattan, at 57th Street and Eighth Avenue.

He was born in Manchester, England, in 1935. Among his firm’s many other projects are London’s City Hall, the Bilbao Metro in Spain, the Canary Wharf Underground Station in London and the renovated courtyard of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

In the 1970s, Lord Foster was one of the most visible practitioners of high-tech architecture that fetishized machine culture. His triumphant 1986 Hong Kong and Shanghai bank building, conceived as a kit-of-parts plugged into a towering steel frame, was capitalism's answer to the populist Pompidou Center in Paris.

Nicolai Ouroussoff, The Times’s architecture critic, has written that although Lord Foster’s work has become sleeker and more predictable in recent years, his forms are always driven by an internal structural logic, and they treat their surroundings with a refreshing bluntness.

Awarded the Prince of Asturias of the Arts 2009.

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Published on: January 16, 2023
Cite: "Foster + Partners completes first office tower in Suhewan, Shanghai" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/foster-partners-completes-first-office-tower-suhewan-shanghai> ISSN 1139-6415
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