Zaha Hadid Architects has completed the Leeza SOHO tower in Beijing, featuring the world’s tallest atrium at the core of the building. 

The 45-storey tower has officially opened at the Lize Financial Business District, a new business, residential and transport hub adjacent to Financial Road in southwest Beijing, China. 

The design of the Leeza SOHO is one of the projects that the late Zaha Hadid has involved in before her death in 2016. The Leeza SOHO officially started design process in 2013. 

The new business district is integral to Beijing’s multi-modal urban plan to accommodate growth without impacting existing infrastructure networks in the centre of the city.

Named Leeza SOHO, the 172,800-square-metre tower has been designed to respond to demand from small and medium-sized businesses in Beijing for flexible and efficient Grade A office space.

The key design element of the tower is its atrium that acts as a public square for the new business district, linking all spaces within the tower and providing varying views due to its twisting, sculptural form and creating a fantastic new civic space for Beijing that is directly connected to the city’s transport network. The tower's atrium, described as the world's tallest atrium, reaches at 194.15m. 

The tower is located in a strategic location, adjacent to the business district’s rail station at the intersection of five new lines currently under construction on Beijing’s Subway network, Leeza SOHO’s site is diagonally dissected by an underground subway service tunnel

Straddling this tunnel, the tower’s design divides its volume into two halves enclosed by a single facade shell. The emerging space between these two halves extends the full height of the tower, the atrium of the tower rotates through the building as the tower rises to realign the upper floors with Lize road to the north. 

"The atrium brings natural light deep within the building, acting as a thermal chimney with an integrated ventilation system that maintains positive pressure at low level to limit air ingress and provides an effective clean air filtration process within the tower’s internal environment," said Zaha Hadid Architects. 

"Leeza SOHO’s double-insulated, unitised glass curtain wall system steps the glazing units on each floor at an angle, providing narrow ventilating registers to draw outside air through operable cavities where required; creating extremely efficient environmental control for each floor."

"The two halves of the tower shade the atrium’s public spaces, while the double-insulated low-e glazing maintains a comfortable indoor environment in Beijing’s extreme weather conditions. With a u-value of 2.0 W/m²K, the glazing has a shading coefficient of 0.4. The tower’s overall external envelope u-value is 0.55 W/m²K," the firm added.

Zaha Hadid Architects used the 3D Building Information Modelling (BIM) in design, construction management and building operations. "ZHA and SOHO China have implemented proven technologies to reduce the energy consumption and emissions at each of their four collaborations, totalling 15 million square feet (1.4 million sq. m) of mixed-use urban space in Beijing and Shanghai," continued the firm. 

The tower has been designed to achieve LEED Gold certification by the US Green Building Council, ZHA implemented advanced 3D BIM energy management system that monitors real-time environmental control and energy efficiency. 

"These systems also include heat recovery from exhaust air and high-efficiency pumps, fans, chillers boilers, lighting and controls," explained the firm. 

"The tower incorporates water-collection, low-flow rate fixtures and grey water flushing as well as an insulating green roof with photovoltaic array to harvest solar energy."

The tower also includes 2,680 bicycle parking spaces, with lockers, shower facilities and dedicated charging spaces for electric and hybrid cars are located below ground; while low volatile organic compound materials are installed throughout Leeza SOHO to minimise interior pollutants and high efficiency filters remove particulates via the air-handling system.

Project facts

Top of façade: 199.99 m

Top of atrium: 194.15 m

Standard floor to floor height: 4.1 m

Number of floors: 45 floors above ground, 4 floors below ground

Site area: 14,365 m²

Gross floor area: 172,800 m²

Project Start Date: October 2013

Siteworks Start Date: April 2015

Completion Date: 19 November 2019 

Project Team

Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA)

Design: Zaha Hadid, Patrik Schumacher

ZHA Project Director: Satoshi Ohashi

ZHA Project Architect: Philipp Ostermaier

ZHA Project Associates: Kaloyan Erevinov, Ed Gaskin, Armando Solano

ZHA Project Team: Yang Jingwen, Di Ding, Xuexin Duan, Samson Lee, Shu Hashimoto, Christoph Klemmt, Juan Liu, Dennis Brezina, Rita Lee, Seungho Yeo, Yuan Feng, Zheng Xu, Felix Amiss, Lida Zhang, Qi Cao

ZHA Competition Directors: Satoshi Ohashi, Manuela Gatto

ZHA Competition Team Lead Designers: Philipp Ostermaier, Dennis Brezina, Claudia Glas Dorner

ZHA Competition Team: Yang Jingwen, Igor Pantic, Mu Ren, Konstantinos Mouratidis, Nicholette Chan, Yung-Chieh Huang

Executive Architect: Beijing Institute of Architectural Design (China)

Consultants

Structure: Bollinger + Grohmann (Stage 0,1); China Academy of Building Research (Stage 2); Beijing Institute of Architectural Design (Stage 3,4)

Facade: Konstruct West Partners (Stage 2); Kighton Facade (Stage 3,4); Yuanda (Stage 3,4)

MEP: Parsons Brinkerhoff (Stage 2); Beijing Institute of Architectural Design (Stage 3,4)

Lighting: J+B Studios Architectural Design (Stage 2); Light Design (Stage 2,3); Leuchte (Stage 4)

Landscape: Zaha Hadid Architects (Stage 2,3); Ecoland (Stage 4) 

Interiors: Zaha Hadid Architects (Stage 2,3); HuaTeng (Stage 4)

Signage: Dongdao (Stage 4,5)

LEED: Schneider Electric (Stage 2)

Helipad: Zhi Jiu (Stage 3,4)

Traffic Consultant: Dazhengtong (Stage 3,4)

Quantity Surveyor: Liby Limited (Stage 2)

Site Supervision: Shuangyuan (Stage 5)

Modelmaker: Gaojie (Stage 2,3)

Visualisation: MIR (Stage 3,4), Cosmoscube (Stage 3,4), Frontop (Stage 2), Gozen (Stage 2), Zero (Stage 2), Atchain (Stage 4)

All images © Hufton + Crow

All drawings © ZHA

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