Text description provided by the architects. Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province, is experiencing ongoing growth. According to current estimates, the metropolis on the Yellow River will have over 11 million inhabitants by 2020. In order to prepare for this development, a new railway station has been built in recent years to the east of the city to create a central traffic interchange.

View from the west. Image

Site Plan

The new buildings by gmp close off an urban design axis to the west, an axis that leads from the new railway station towards the city center. Like an entrance door to the city, the high-rise buildings form a vertical counterpoise to the horizontal building of the railway station. A plaza between the towers forms a linking element. Owing to their height of 284 meters, the twin towers are significantly higher than the other high-rise buildings in the vicinity and, as identity-creating buildings in the skyline of Zhengzhou, are visible from afar.

Sky Lobby. Image

The 63 stories of the Greenland Towers accommodate mostly offices. One tower comprises about 232,000 square meters—a comparatively large area for a high-rise building of this height, which is due to the very large area per floor of 4,000 square meters. This makes it possible to flexibly divide the floor area of each floor into up to 15 units.

View of facade. Image

At their base, both towers have to their side L-shaped plinth buildings that accommodate commercial functions. By separating the towers from the plinth buildings, there is unrestricted access to the lobbies of the towers from all sides. Almost 12,000 people cross the foyer of each tower every day on their way to the upper floors.

Swimming pool in the spa. Image

In plan, the layout of the towers has been arranged offset in windmill fashion around the square core of the building. All offices benefit from natural ventilation via concealed openings in the facade profiles. With the sky lobbies on every eighth floor, the office towers have prestigious areas in the vertical that can be used in many different ways by the local companies. An unusual feature in a high-rise building of this size is that the employees are given the opportunity to use an outside terrace at high level and, from here, to enjoy the view across the cityscape of Zhengzhou.

Foyer. Image

The top stories of the Greenland Towers accommodate the eight-story Sky Atrium, which is reserved for exclusive functions: the co-called “Sky Commerce” with restaurants, shops, and a spa extends across three floors next to the atrium. Luxurious offices in the north tower and exclusive club facilities and apartments in the south tower make up the uppermost floors of the towers. With the Sky Atrium, an attractive public venue has been created for art exhibitions and concerts, thus enriching vertical urban life in China with a new attraction at a height of 240 meters.

Staircase in „Sky Atrium“ . Image

Illumination by night. Image © Jianghe Zeng

• Architects

  gmp Architects

• Location

  Zhengzhou, Henan, China

• Category

  Commercial Architecture

• Design

  Meinhard von Gerkan, Stephan Schutz, Nicolas Pomranke

• Competition project management

  Niklas Veelken

• Competition design team

  Jan Deml, Amelie Neusen, Michael Reiss, Susan Schwarz, Sabine Stage, Jochen Sultrup, Thilo Zehme, Bin Zhou

• Detail design project management

  Niklas Veelken, Jens Weiler

• Detail design team

  Markus Busch, Ping Cao, Lan Chen, Yue Chen, Andrew Davis, Jan Deml, Christian Dorndorf, Johannes Erdmann, Kuno von Hafen, Boyan Kolchakov, Lin Lin, Fernando Nassare, Kristin Schoyerer, Elsa Tang, Thilo Zehme, Zhou Bin

• Partner practice in China

  TJADRI Group, Co., Ltd., Shanghai

• Area

  746000.0 m2

• Project Year

  2018

• Photographs

  ZMG China, Jianghe Zeng