Ascentage Pharma

Ascentage Pharma

Design: 2018-2019
Construction: 2019-2022

Ascentage Pharmaceutical Headquarters is a new research and manufacturing complex in Suzhou, China, for a growing pharmaceutical company. Reflecting the aspirations of Ascentage’s cutting-edge work in biotechnology, the state-of-the-art campus was realized using some of the most advanced digital design and fabrication tools available. The 80-meter-tall research and administration building—the new symbol of Ascentage—stands prominently on Xinqing Road near a mass-transit subway station.

Open, clean, and modern, the seven buildings take the form of discrete curvilinear shapes—soft in nature and elevated above glass bases, appearing to float above a reflecting pool clad in black granite.

Each building’s façade is derived from the hexagonal form of a benzene ring, which is then parametrically modeled to wrap each volume. These facades are digitally fabricated using ultra-high-strength concrete panels, and anodized aluminum nodes and extrusions, resulting in a series of unique facades that strike a balance between transparency and privacy.

With high-tech research labs and expansive manufacturing spaces, the carefully programmed composition across the 60,870-square-meter site creates a singular campus and bold new identity for Ascentage’s promising future.

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Tencent Shanghai

Symphony Orthodontics

Design: 2017-2018
Construction: 2018
Area: 9,000 m2

Multinational investment internet holding conglomerate Tencent has quickly become one of the world’s most valuable companies. With this newfound stature, the founders approached OLI to design an elevated, wellness-focused office for the company’s Cloud Computing division.

The resulting environment reflects both the company’s stature and relatively young engineering workforce. The design emphasizes a holistic approach to office well-being and balances collaborative open spaces with individual areas for heads-down work.

The design embraces simple principles and natural materials, marking a departure from the iconographic, multi-colored interiors of Tencent’s previous offices. Long, linear tables arranged on an open-floor plan replace the traditional room and cubicle partitions. Strategic table cutouts accommodate broadleaf plants and staggered floor-to-ceiling storage units incorporate varying levels of privacy and establish distinct zones throughout the office.

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Museum of Islamic Art Terrace

Design: 2015-2016
Construction: 2016

At the top floor of I. M. Pei’s Museum of Islamic Art is Idam, Alain Ducasse’s first restaurant in the Middle East offering an Arabic inspired French haute cuisine. Simple yet understated, the design provides access from the signature national institution to a newly designed terrace space with seating and service counters.

Oversized stainless-steel peak doors, low iron glass and “Hautville” French limestone preserves the geometry and material palate of the original museum design while offering a new experience, with spectacular panoramic views of the ever-growing Doha skyline.

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Symphony Orthodontics

Symphony Orthodontics

Design: 2021
Construction: 2022

• 2023 Interiors Awards Finalists Announced: Healthcare

Symphony Orthodontics is a 1,500 ft2 clinic founded by an Orthodontic specialist, in an area of Virginia with a latent demand for treatment. The client sought a welcoming and inclusive strategy for her first outpost, to gain the trust of new patients. The design of the new clinic also needed to feel innovative to reflect the state-of-the-art treatments on offer and generate a buzz in the community.

To meet this challenge, OLI Architecture designed a series of flowing open and enclosed spaces with sinuous organic lines. The integration of white surfaces (which enhance levels of natural light) and live trees throughout the space are strategies deployed in Evidence-Based Design (EBD) to promote healing and reduce stress. Ultimately, the desire was to elevate the space beyond a medical environment, with attention also given to custom millwork surfaces, from a curved reception desk and volumetric sculpted lights to frameless curved wood doors. Quality craftsmanship and custom-made details take priority over ready-made commercial products to highlight the clinic’s custom-made treatment approach.

Incorporating a complex and varied program within a narrow, linear footprint posed a unique design challenge. While fluidity, connectivity and efficiency are key in times of high foot traffic, it was important to maintain strict programmatic delineations, such as between the public waiting room, treatment areas and delivery access. The fine balance between public and private is also achieved by incorporating elements such as gradient frosted glass, which maintains privacy and keeps patients at ease, while creating visual and cognitive transparency between staff and patients.

An emphasis on sustainability was threaded throughout the project. All materials, even the low-iron, ultra-clear curved-glass partitions, were locally sourced. Every light received an LED bulb and motion-sensor, including the striking ornamental fixtures. Motorized outdoor air dampers and exterior door seals decrease HVAC loads, while insulated partitions and ceiling cavities boost R values. Monolithic white volumes and surfaces, together with high ceilings, maximize light and air flow throughout the space; live plants improve air quality. LVT flooring, selected for durability, meets WELL and LEED certification standards and is free of phthalates (particularly detrimental to children).

The resulting design offers a new take on the clinical: a clean and neutral space in which harsh corners are softened and stress and tension is substituted with serenity, embodying the clinics holistic approach and restoring smiles to young patients.

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BSM Service Center

Design: 2020-Ongoing
Construction: 2022-Ongoing

Changxing County Xiaopu Town Smart Village Management Service Center is located in the scenic area of Baduqian, Xiaopu Town, Changxing County. It will serve four natural villages, namely, Dajiakou, Panlinan, Fangyan and Fangyi. The building of the service center is located on the shore of Badu Weir. Like a floating village among ginkgo trees, it will provide services to the villagers, and will also become a new landmark and attraction in the Badu Qin scenic area.

The architectural design concept of the service center originates from the beautiful and spectacular ancient ginkgoes in the Baduyan Scenic Area. The central building consists of tall wooden pillars shaped like the trunk of a ginkgo tree, connected by a platform and a roof. The center consists of a cluster of buildings with different functions, connected by a network of columns and lifted up to ensure an unobstructed view of the surrounding water and trees. The buildings with different functions are connected by yellow platforms, among which there are small ginkgo gardens, sun corridors and communication spaces. The roof, supported by wooden columns, is made of polycarbonate, and the ceiling is made of colored wooden strips, where the sunlight is dispersed and shines softly on the ground, as if it were a crystal clear ginkgo tree in autumn.

The largest space is the multi-functional hall, which can hold large wedding banquets of 450 people. The perimeter of the banquet hall is slightly stepped, and the space can be divided or combined to hold events of different scales.

The design will use old wood as much as possible to increase the sustainability of the project and to echo the surrounding ginkgo trees and the old timber frame house. Some structures can be prefabricated and assembled on-site to speed up construction. Wooden structures will also bring a comfortable sense of nature and warmth to people, moving their heart and reducing their stress.

The Smart Village Management Service Center in Xiaopu Town will be an environmentally friendly, comfortable, natural and people-oriented center for villagers and will receive guests from all over the world around the clock, becoming an important landmark attraction in the Badujiao scenic area.

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Yao Poly

Yao Poly

Y PROJECT

Designed for an avid collector of rare Tibetan Buddhist art, the office and gallery space are housed in SOM’s recently completed Poly International Center in Shanghai’s Pudong District. On the 8th level of the tower, the full-floor office has access to panoramic views of the Huangpu River and the ever-growing Shanghai skyline.

The design, contemporary yet casual, adapts to the duality of the needs of a burgeoning financial services company and the serene and tranquil gallery spaces of client’s growing art collection. Illuminated and scaled with intent, the custom-designed showcases are spatial yet minimal in their articulation, bringing to the foreground the exquisite artifacts of gilded bronze, copper, and gold.

Y Residence

Y Villa

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Fangsuo Commune

Fangsuo Commune

Design: 2018-2020

Shanghai Fangsuo Culture Center Public Culture Project is located at 1790 Bin Jiang Blvd, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, a traditional industrial shipyard which has been planned by the district government to be transformed to a new cultural and retail destination. Flanked by an OMA exhibition pavilion and a shipyard factory which was adaptively reused into a new conference center by Kengo Kuma, the new Shanghai Fangsuo Cultural Center will be a new cultural bookstore containing, themed zones of books and activity. Proprietary Fangsuo goods and activities of books, stationary, fashion, cafe, kitchen studios, gallery and theater, have been designed adjacent themed marketing tie-ups and retail collaborations throughout the 17,000m2 complex.

The design of the project was inspired by the historical memory of the industrial shipyard and the adjacent Haungpu river, the commerical lifeline to the development of Shanghai. OLI’s design was conceived as two ship hulls creating a spine of bookshelves with themed zones in the never used partially submerged core and shell building. The axial spine with a series of intermittent skylights and three main courtyards connected to flood locks abutting the river, connects the various programmed spaces on either side, allowing the visitors to wander through strategically placed openings and mezzanine bridges. The materials are mainly architectural color concrete, textured blackened steel and terrazzo with specially designed metal bookshelves inspired by ship elements. The East and West entrance canopies and the unique stair elements of the courtyards allowing multiple access points into the retail complex are also incorporated into the ship inspired design.

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Tencent BJ

Design: 2017-2019
Construction: 2018-2019

Designed by the Office of Metropolitan Architecture, the new Beijing Headquarters for Tencent, multinational internet conglomerate, and the 13^th most valuable company in the world (by Forbes), required unified design for the signage and wayfinding systems, as well as placemaking environmental graphics in key strategic public areas. In collaboration with Pentagram, the world’s largest independently-owned, multidisciplinary design firm, OLI was tasked to unify the sprawling multilevel headquarters with strategic signage and wayfinding interventions. The design team through careful analysis of the building layout and occupant flow, designed minimal digital placemaking interventions in key public nodes, providing distinct landmarks within the strong architectural character of the new complex, and a common visual and material language for the thousands of employees the new HQ would accommodate.

Additional changes to the interior architecture through discrete interventions have been strategically developed with an emphasis on maximum impact while considering and honoring the original design intent of the space and the schedule of construction minimizing abortive works.

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