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The site faces the main street(Hang Zhou South Rd.) on the west. With the service core is located on the east side, and other buildings on the north and south sides; therefore, main framework of the spaces and principal circulation paths are located along the east-west axis. The glass curtain façade facing the west is not only a thin surface for light intake, but also a feature which expresses the multi-layered quality of the building. The design seeks to operate the glass and the curtain systems within the curtain walls that are 20cm thick, archieving a sense of spatial depth. A bigger challenge is the large area of glass curtains being exposed to harsh western sunshine. The design attempts to give expression to this office building through glass curtain walls, which composed of plate glass installed by cranes from the exterior.
The glass used in this design play either of these two roles: lighting and non-lighting. The lighting sections employ tinted glass to reduce heat conduction; the non-lighting sections (shading structures and sills) employ clear glass, backed with aluminum plates 10cm apart from the glass, thus forming shadow boxes-the shallow depth and shadows of the material giving a sense of depth to the surface. The light green tint of the clear glass, backed with the light gray of the aluminum plates, mix into a light grayish green, thus becoming one with tinted glass of the lighting sections. On the outermost surface of the western façade are the sunshades, which solve the problem of sunshine from the west, and also integrate
the two types of glass into a whole, giving the western facades a richer sense of layered texture.
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