Beijing Greenland Center

Anchoring Beijing’s Dawangjing business district, the mixed-use Beijing Greenland Center is a highly sustainable landmark building equidistant from Beijing’s bustling core and the airport. The 260-meter-tall, 55-story tower prioritizes sustainability and efficiency and is clad in a prismatic trapezoidal glass façade that generates self-shading to enhance the building’s environmental performance.

The design team sought to create an elegant, eye-catching tower by exploring interactions between simple form, light, and shadow. In a response to Beijing’s overcast skies, the tower catches and reflects daylight to enliven the surrounding neighborhood. The tower accommodates multiple programs—Class A office space and serviced apartments—and connects to an attached multi-story retail podium. The tower stacks 178 serviced apartments on top of four office floor zones, organized around a simple rectangular plan with a central core to maximize flexibility.

The tower’s striking façade pattern is informed by the bas relief carving technique: Isosceles trapezoidal modules function as prisms, catching daylight and refracting it to create an interplay of light and shadow. Each face is composed of two vertical, low-E insulated vision glass panels. Two trapezoid types alternate in a regular pattern up the tower’s height, tapering toward the sky or the neighborhood below. The trapezoidal skin increases the building’s performance, providing energy-saving self-shading on all faces.

The design aims to achieve a 30% reduction in energy use and water consumption compared to baseline by utilizing sustainable features such as a Direct Digital Control building automation system, a heat reclaim wheel, variable speed pumps for heating and cooling, and a water-side economizer to utilize evaporative cooling.

Addressing a need for environmentally responsible, mixed-use urban development, Beijing Greenland Center is a highly visible example of how visually striking design can also be highly flexible and sustainable.