China Central Television Headquarters
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China Central Television Headquarters

OMA

China Central Television Headquarters
By OMA Rem Koolhaas -

The interconnection between the different activities involved in television production has dictated the form of China Central Television’s new headquarters in Beijing. Designed by OMA, the building has a loop structure formed by two large inverted-L shaped volumes that meet at the top at right angles, forming a 75 metre (246 foot) cantilever. The two towers, which rise from a common platform dubbed the Plinth, accommodate all the different divisions of CCTV, which were previously scattered throughout the city, including offices, production and recording studios, editing rooms and the broadcast centre. The horizontal structure connecting the two houses the administration departments.
The facades, whose design is not based on any kind of hierarchy but forms a single three-dimensional entity that can be observed from any angle like a sculpture, are crossed by lines that become more dense and more thin depending on the distribution of greater and lesser amounts of stress on the building structure. The resulting irregular grid of steel pipes will provide the building, which stands in a high seismic risk area, resistance to the force of gravity and lateral loads.
The building’s high-performance fritted glass panels provide sun-shading, while their steel-grey colour gives the building a soft presence on the Beijing skyline. Accommodating ten thousand workers, the building is directly connected to the city underground rail network via a 10,000 m2 atrium, which occupies three below- and three above-ground floors of the highest tower. This space also leads to the twelve television studios on the upper levels, the largest of which is 2,000 m2.
The CCTV headquarters offers an unprecedented level of public access compared to most Chinese buildings. By following a dedicated public loop, visitors can watch the work being done in the studios as well as access a panoramic room in the cantilevered structure, which offers views of the Imperial Palace and the entire city of Beijing.

 

Location: Beijing, China
Client: Central Chinese Television (CCTV)
Completion: 2012
Gross Floor Area: 473.000 m2
Cost of Construction: 600.000.000 Euros
Architects: OMA - Rem Koolhaas, Ole Scheeren
Project Architect: Shohei Shigematsu
Design Team: Hiromasa Shirai, Catarina Canas, Adrianne Fisher, Fernando Donis
Competition Team: Alain Fouraux, Anu Leinonen, Tammo Prinze with Erez Ella, Victoria Willocks, Johannes Buchholz, Guillaume Colboc, Mamen Escorihuela, Sarah Gibson, Shiro Ogata, Torsten Schröder, L. E. Tsao, Zhaohui Wu, Yimin Zhu
Local Partner: Qinyun Ma; East China Architecture & Design Institute (ECADI)

Consultants
Structural:
Ove Arup & Partners - Cecil Balmond, Rory McGowan, Stephen Jolly

Photography: © OMA by Philippe Ruault

 

 

 

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