Commercial
Qingpu Private Enterprise Association Building
By Daniel Elsea

The glass box is one of the more powerful motifs in Modern architecture. Immortalized by Philip Johnson in his house in New Canaan, Connecticut, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in such projects as the Seagram’s building in New York City and the Farnsworth House in Illinois, it continues to be an important point of departure for architects around the world. In Qingpu, on the western fringes of Shanghai, Atelier Deshaus has imaginatively reinterpreted this staple of Modernism in its design for the Qingpu Private Enterprise Association offices, which opened in October 2005.

Atelier Deshaus’ take on the Modernist cube is the latest in a series of exceptional architecture in Qingpu, which is fast becoming a repository of architectural gems [Architectural Record china, Vol. 1/2005, page 14]. Like many similar works recently completed in Qingpu, the Private Enterprise Association is an intimate building: it is relatively small in scale, measuring just 4,980 square meters.

On first glance, this Chinese “glass house” may appear to be a simple cube, but it is actually two structures: a core building with a 60-by-60-meter plan that is three stories tall and a second structure that is a lattice frame of steel and glass enclosing the first one. Between the two structures, an airy, buffer zone planted with bamboo and traversed by gentle ramps, wraps around the office core. The “interior” building is enclosed by glazed curtain wall containing a layer of film printed with a pattern that echoes the cracks found in ice and alludes to traditional Chinese screens. The ground floor is elevated, housing a reception area and a café, while the upper two floors contain offices and conference facilities.

At a kindergarten also designed by Atelier Deshaus in Qingpu, bold colors enliven the facades, but at the Qinpu Private Enterprise Association, white dominates the visual palette. “It adds purity to the building,” says Zhuang Shen, one of the principal architects of Atelier Deshaus.

This sense of purity is also evident in the glass walls that connect activity inside the offices with landscapes outside. At the center of the office block, Deshaus carved out a large outdoor courtyard and landscaped it like a modern Chinese garden with pools of water, stepping stones over the water, trees, flowers, and terraces. Although the courtyard is used mostly by employees and guests of the client, the architect cut through the office building at several spots to create views from the surrounding areas into the central landscaped space.

“We wanted to create a clear and independent building that softly merges into its surroundings,” notes Deshaus, who was inspired by an important tenant of Chinese philosophy: the concept of “being humble without losing one’s identity.”

In its use of glass and steel to create new kinds of screens and its modern interpretation of a vernacular garden, Atelier Deshaus has created a new building that respects its local context. “Our design philosophy is deeply rooted [in the] relation between tradition and new social, economic, and cultural conditions,” says Zhuang.