#Global Design: One Museum Place- A new paradigm in grade-A office tower in the heart of Shanghai

The Jing’an district has long been a residential, cultural, and retail hub. With the property directly connected to the new Line 13 station, and integrating with the nearby sculpture park, science museum and Nanjing Road retail street, makes One Museum Place a truly “live, work and play” architecture project.

The development of this area is the result of Shanghai’s recent efforts to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship, but balanced in a way that fosters integrated development. One Museum Place is the first office tower to enter the district. But it is more than just an office building, it is a culturally anchored mixed-use development that amplifies the existing city fabric. The transit-served development supports the district’s identity as a cultural destination and commits to a synergistic relationship with the local communities.

Transit Hub

Transit is a key component of the project. Gensler integrated existing transportation links into the tower’s landscaping as a way to maximize space. Positioned above a major metro hub, commuters, tenants, and visitors, the diverse number of end-users will benefit from this walkable urbanism. Advanced vertical transportation systems, ultra-efficient MEP engineering, and intelligent programming meet the company’s international building standards. These energy efficiencies encapsulate Hines’s and Gensler’s commitment for a truly Grade A office building.

Russel Gilchrist, Chief Architect of One Museum Place said, “One of the reasons that the client chose Gensler was our ability to work quickly and efficiently to design the project whilst effortlessly integrating all the demands of the Metro Station’s design and operational requirements. No other locally based design team could undertake this work as well as Gensler. Benefiting from Gensler’s One Firm-Firm approach, global expertise and local design team together to move quickly to meet client’s needs.

A New Paradigm

Rather than standing on its own as an icon for the skyline, the tower embraces the city, with a lifestyle-oriented retail pavilion that spills out onto the street to create public dining, shopping and leisure amenities.

The spacious, landscaped rooftop terraces overlooking the nearby popular Jing’an Sculpture Park create an inviting space for business and pleasure, making One Museum Place a public attraction. That level of activity exploits land and resources more efficiently, supports larger populations, and generates higher revenues.

The Office Tower

The main lobby of the One Museum Place office tower features modern and efficient architecture paired with classic high-end materials like marble, stainless steel and glass. Floor-to-ceiling glass throughout the office tower allows brilliant natural light deep into all tenant spaces and highlights the unobstructed views of Museum Place, its parks and the city beyond. In the lobby, high-tech LED displays feature both art and building information.

A Sustainable Approach to Facade Design

One Museum Place is built to the highest international specifications of quality and sustainability with features such as three-meter clear ceiling heights and superior elevator service. Sustainable features and programs include a high-performance façade designed to mitigate solar heat gains and reduce glare, a basement ice storage system that mitigates peak energy costs and ensures a cost-effective and sustainable approach.

Innovative facade design solution greatly reduced the impact from glazed exterior to its neighboring buildings and residents in the community. The adopted outward-tilting glazed facade to the east and west sides of the building reduced the solar glare reflected onto neighboring buildings and decreased the internal heat gain from direct sunlight, whilst allowing building occupants a full 360-degree panorama view from its tallest building.

Russel Gilchrist, Chief Architect of One Museum Place said, “The facade design had to meet very high-performance energy criteria for thermal and occupancy comfort as well as respond to newly introduced stringent facade reflectivity regulations by the local Shanghai Government. These new code restrictions necessitated that the design team would need to survey all building occupants of residential and civic buildings within a 1.25 km radius of the tower that might be impacted from the tower’s predominantly floor to ceiling glazed exterior.”

The increased daylight levels and reduced heat and energy loads from artificial lightning positively affected the downsizing of HVAC systems and equipment while further reducing energy usage. The overall composition and appearance of the building embraces this approach, the east and west facades have a depth and texture to them that is in contrast with the smaller portion of the smooth facade that is central to the north and south facades which gives emphasis to the verticality of these narrower facades.

Indoor Air Quality

To achieve the aspiration of Hines for the project to be a paradigm shift in class A office, Gensler’s approach and main strategies to achieve this was a particular emphasis and investment on internal air quality. With more and more people concerned with pollution and air quality issues, the design approach was to achieve the best indoor quality air to set it apart from what’s available in the market that is able to attract and maintain tenants that put a priority in employees’ work environment.

The building is the first commercial project to receive RESET™ Air pre-certification status. Using a state-of-the-art, continuous indoor air quality monitoring and management system, the air inside is the cleanest air commercially available in China.

The precisely monitored and controlled temperature, humidity and filtration systems also feature a germicidal system featuring UV Lights, advanced PM2.5 indoor air quality monitoring system, and a full-time indoor air quality manager on-site.