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Rocco Design Architects' new Shenzhen tower features a seven-level internal courtyard

2023-08-04T11:29:00-04:00

Rocco Design Architects has released photographs of their newly-completed Essence Financial Securities tower in Shenzhen. The 635-foot-tall high-rise combines two separate headquarters offices, financial trading halls, and commercial office space in a self-described “vertical neighborhood.”

Image credit: Rocco Design Architects

The building's exterior design elevates the main body of the tower, creating a pedestrian passage that connects the entrance plaza to the wider Futian district. At the base of the tower, a volume clad with green walls is topped by a public roof deck that extends into a public plaza, while above, pedestrian sky bridges link the tower to nearby buildings.

Image credit: Rocco Design Architects

Image credit: Zhang Chao Studio

Inside, the tower’s defining elements are a series of triple- and septuple-height internal courtyards. Located within the three stacks of floors at the upper heights of the tower, the courtyards sit in voids...

Rocco Design Architects' Hong Kong Palace Museum is officially open

2022-12-09T19:14:00-05:00

A new civic landmark in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District is being celebrated after Rocco Design Architects Associates (RDA)’s Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) officially opened its doors to the public.

The 30,000-square-meter (323,000-square-foot) museum’s design pays homage to the Beijing Palace Museum, from which it drew 900 of its collection’s objects, relying on a vertical sequence of three stacked atria that reference Hong Kong’s dense urban landscape in order to draw visitors upwardly through an interior again based on the “spatial experience” of the Palace’s sequential courtyards.

Image courtesy Rocco Design

The new building sits adjacent to the Cultural District’s Art Park and offers sweeping views of nearby Victoria Harbor. Museumgoers enter the structure through a pavilion that frames a “grand elevated plaza” in a nod to the gates of Beijing’s Forbidden City. Once inside, a spine-like central staircase connects the 7,800 square meters (84,...

Bao'An Performing Arts Center by Rocco Design Architects opens in Shenzhen

2022-02-21T15:24:00-05:00

Rocco Design Architects Associates have completed the Performing Arts Center as part of their wider Bao-An Cultural District masterplan in Shenzhen, China. The 600 seat, 28,000-square-meter building houses Shenzhen’s first performance hall and will host opera, dance, symphonies, and dramatic performances.

Overlooking Quanhai Bay and the South China Sea, the building anchors the southern end of the Bao-An Cultural District. The 110,000-square-meter arts and performance complex was masterplanned and designed by Rocco Design Architects and includes three major new destinations: the Performing Arts Center, a Library, and a Youth Palace. The Library was completed in 2013 and the Youth Palace in 2018.

The design of the Performing Arts Center takes inspiration from the long and narrow waterfront site. The base of the building is a low-slung, wave-like volume that provides a sense of rhythm and movement along the campus’s axis. The building’s delicately perforated façade refers back to an...

New skyscraper church in Hong Kong seeks to "create a peaceful and solemn" place of worship

2019-10-31T13:57:00-04:00

The Rocco Design Architects-designed tower, which will hold the Wesleyan House Methodist International Church, sits on a teardrop-shaped site in Wan Chai, Hong Kong. With 800 square meters of plot and 11,000 square meters of program, the task proved challenging for the design team. The resulting solution manifests itself as a vertical church that integrates the sanctuary, chapels, activity halls, social service floors, and pastoral offices into the tower.

A pragmatic consideration was implemented in the adjacencies of the program. A large congregation hall sits above the main sanctuary, inviting worshippers to gather after the service. Offices and pastoral residences are situated on adjacent floors, providing a seamless connection for its residents, while still seeking to retain distinct identities.

The exterior language of the structure flexes a subtly curved facade with a solid core east facing wall sporting casement windows as opposed to a curtain wall. A sustainable effort inte...