Ferrier Marchetti, Huaxin Tiandi Campus in Shanghai

When you hear about offices in cities, you usually think of architecture with a certain kind of visual aesthetic, often nondescript and only rarely open to interaction with their urban context. As soon as the office workers finish their day, the buildings empty and these mammoths turn into complete non-places, standing unused for a good part of the time. Considering the lack of available space in our cities, this kind of approach seems to completely ignore modern-day problems. In contrast, the intelligent use of resources should underpin every design project.
The architects from Ferrier Marchetti Studio designed their latest major project, Huaxin Tiandi Campus in Shanghai after reflecting on these issues. The architecture of this office campus is restrained and unified, a calm counterpoint to the bustling Chinese metropolis. The many loggias in each building are clad in coloured ceramic tubes, in a contemporary take on bamboo, leveraging Chinese tradition and ancestral knowledge. The architects have used an interplay of colours and materials to create a sense of movement, a continually shifting façade that changes in appearance when viewed from different perspectives.
The project focuses on a sustainable environment and human experience. The architects say, “This Ferrier Marchetti Studio project is emblematic of our approach to both contemporary architecture and its ability to express urban ambition, comprising a collection of buildings, each with an individual form designed to suit its location but, at the same time, contributing to a strong collective identity with a strong interlaced landscape.”
In fact, the most noticeable feature is the large garden which serves as a daily backdrop for all the workers but is also a promenade offered to the city. It diagonally crosses through the campus so people can walk from Yishan Road to Tianlin Road through a natural landscape, a long way from the traffic. The buildings have been positioned in a way to keep the site open to its surroundings, inviting the community to populate this piece of nature in the heart of the city, to turn it into a lively, friendly space even outside office hours. The landscaping embraces bushes and trees, but it also has a beautiful lawn covered in flowers, pleasing to the eye, easy to maintain and a refuge for insects.
With Huaxin Tiandi Campus, Ferrier Marchetti Studio has completed a project intending to improve quality of life through the architecture itself but also through its connection with the urban fabric. With good reason, the architects state: “We aim to move beyond the fragmented, de-contextualized experience of cities to once again place the senses, the body at the center of design. The pleasure that can be given by the daily experience of cities has to be reconquered as an essential and vital asset of our urban lives.”

Christiane Bürklein

Project: Ferrier Marchetti Studio
Location: Shanghai, China
Year: 2020
Images: Luc Boegly