Huawei Nanjing Research & Development Center, an organic architecture for integrated design

Huawei Nanjing Research & Development Center is one of the important institutions of Huawei, the world's top technology innovation company. It took multi-disciplinary the design group 6 years to complete the whole phase of the project’s integrated design (architecture, landscape, interior design).

【Anchoring and Blending into The Site】
The site sits next to Yuhuatai area, a hilly landform. The new R&D center crosses two tableland with 6 meters’ height difference and is aimed to blend the mass into the site, with the vehicle circulation and drop-off area on the west and private and silent area on the east. The high ground connects the natural sloping field and low ground attaching the built industrial area, remaining the memory of the sit as much as possible.

【Dialogue Gate + Cloud Corridor】
To divide the mass and avoid direct view conflict, the building was disassembled into 3 groups, twisted at a proper extent, and connected by the “Cloud Corridor”. This results in “an aerial integrated sharing floor” and turned the plaza into a grey space with canopy, connecting the viewpoint with city area, promoting their communication.

【Courtyard in the Wind + Terraced Deck】
The floor plans are designed as a basic form of rectangle with rounded corner for the working efficiency and space quality. Since the depth of working area is not more than 10m, each working desk is less than 30m to the core. To improve the “micro-weather” at a relatively hot and humid condition in Nanjing, the three buildings are implanted with open inner courtyard or covered atrium. The sunshine atrium space with 5th floor height becomes a sharing and interaction space vertically. Meanwhile, the use of setback and protruding surface mimic the natural form of terraces, providing the opportunity for the users to communicate with the environment.

【Flexible Development + Complex Sharing】
The typical floors of these three R&D buildings are designed at a difference of 1,500 ㎡for various scales of groups, which are 2,000㎡, 3,500㎡ and 5,000㎡. According to different spatial characteristics, they are designed as a “complex community” along the vertical direction. Labs and parking lots are set on the basement floor. Taking advantage of the large depth space on the semi-basement floor, the front area has an open staff restaurant and coffee lounge with external landscape view, as the kitchen and supporting services are set in the rear area. Since the ground floor and the semi-basement have two entrances, serving as both reception and exhibition space, the users can enter the buildings from different level. The fifth floor, the “Cloud Corridor”, contains different kinds of public sharing space such as training, fitness, conference, library, etc. On the roof, there is a sky garden with an unobscured view. The employees can enjoy abundant space experience and perfect humanized services on different floors.

【Integrated Design + Whole Process Service】
The shape of the building is varied, and the structure is relatively complex. The cantilevered transition truss is used between the second and third floors of Building N, and the cantilever span reaches 18 meters; Building N and Building M use arc-shaped truss corridors between the fourth and fifth floors with a span of about 32 meters with a sliding bearing on one side to release the seismic force; Building M and Building S are connected by arc-shaped truss corridors between the fourth and sixth floors with a span of 40 meters, and inclined columns is set to meet the effect of the building's façade.
The 3 discipline groups: architecture, Landscape and interior design, highly co-operated to inspire each other meanwhile maintained the harmony of the design technique. As the key space, the R&D office is divided into several modules which can be combined freely in terms of form and scale. The large-scale public office module with white hue faces towards exterior to the nature the urban view. The small-scale office module is set near the inner space as meeting rooms to provide a quite environment and prevent interference. Cores scatter for some irregular shape of areas. And cafés are set at some key nodes with the interior color set referring to high brightness warm color such as pure orange and yellow, which reinforces the sharing and communication space interface. Also, a lecture space by expanding the 2-floor-high stair is set on the “Cloud Corridor” floor. At the same time, the exposed trusses are combined with the green view as a kind of structure beauty.
They also create The Landscape group highly utilized the origin natural landscape resources to construct several landscape themes such as big ladder, wide grass, and drop water. The 3 groups are work together to control the quality of the details in construction field, which made a highly completed outcome of the ideas and conceptions.

【Conclusion】
The building faces the modern style of the city, backed by the natural green landscape. Through architectural planning and shape design, natural lighting is used to ventilate the atrium to reduce energy consumption while ensuring a comfortable indoor thermal environment. The façade shading blinds improves the energy efficiency ratio of air conditioning equipment. The flexible division of office space meets the needs of Huawei's operating model in different periods, and the building cooperates with the company for common development.
The design of Huawei Nanjing R&D Center fundamentally begins with the regression of the location and region, the corporate culture and user demands. It was implemented by the systematic, rational and complete design strategy, and practiced by multi-major and full-lifecycle services. We made with the client these prospective, regional and humanistic concern spaces, using the vital space to activate the creativity, using the delicate construction to refer the enterprise’s pursuit of quality, using the nature-merging design to build the humanism experience.