The upgraded Kuntai Tower will serve to revitalize Beijing’s Chaowai District, offering premium new green office spaces and lifestyle offerings.
Gensler was commissioned by Kuntai Group to execute repositioning and building transformation for Kuntai Tower. Located in Beijing’s CBD Chaoyang District, the project is identified as the first key project to undergo upgrading and renewal of Chaowai Street. With a total construction area of about 46,000 square meters, the Kuntai Tower is revitalized to become a healthy urban oasis and an urban cultural landmark, offering premium office spaces, commercial and cultural programing as the main body, and with the introduction of new lifestyle formats such as art exhibition halls, creative retail, cultural and sports etc. The newly unveiled Kuntai Tower is aligned with the aesthetics, needs and positioning of young demographics.
First built in 1996, it was formerly the headquarters of Kuntai Group. Renovation work for the building began in 2022. The tower has 22 floors, 3 underground floors and a building height of 87.6m, of which 1-6 floors are commercial areas and 7-22 floors are office areas.
The newly renovated Kuntai Tower will consist of two zones – the office tower and commercial floors, of which is rebranded THE BOX Youth Center, which houses restaurants, retail shops, gyms, public terraces and shared creative spaces, integrating with the office ecology at the office tower.
Chaowai District’s first urban renewal project
Identified as Chaowai District’s first major urban renewal project, Kuntai Tower will take the lead to develop and promote creative industries and innovative businesses for the district. Kuntai Tower will aim to attract enterprises of the “three new economies” – new digital economy, new service economy and new creative economy,
The rebranded Kuntai Tower will introduce premium lifestyle brands, local and abroad, to be first located here, including fashion brands, art, cultural, entertainment and sports experience. The rejuvenated and vibrant space aims to attract new creative, digital and new service economy. At the same time, Chaoyang Cultural Tourism Group will also settle in the building and serve as its headquarters office.
The century-old Chaowai Street is one of Beijing’s “landmark” commercial streets, with a total length of about 1.4 kilometers from Chaoyangmen in the west to Dongdaqiao in the east, where the Bainaohui, Blue Island Building and Fenglian Plaza are located.
New Design Concept
Gensler’s design concept proposes for a “Culture Hub“ with a vision from 3 different scales – urban, Community and Architecture, which is aligned to the Group’s vision to rebrand the project into a place that fosters creativity and innovation, a platform that creates stories of innovation and makes a memorable experience for everyone.
City Scale: “Connectivity”, “Activation“, “Innovation“ is our key words, bridge the two anchors by design elements to respond to existing, establish moments of diverse experiences to recall moments, create unique public spaces as place making. Community Scale: we underline the importance of program and its management to connect neighborhood, and rebuild brand. Architecture Scale: we emphasize permeability on ground level, flexibility on other floors for various programs, and transparency to facade design to replace the existing old and closed facade, and to upgrade curtain wall by use more energy-efficient glasses.
The designers at Gensler looked into some of the challenges in the existing architecture structure and transform them into opportunities. For example, the odd skewed column grid which is inconvenient for commercial space planning but forms unique opportunity for atrium space, providing permeability to the whole street block.
Another design challenge was, the top floor with three-story oddly shaped mechanical rooms, the solution was to envelope the form with an iconic shaped building crown featuring lighting effects and usable roof terrace.
Roof Garden
The newly renovated design upgrades the roof of the 18-19 storey building, and the original equipment space is built into a roof garden integrating employee activities and corporate displays, which improves the quality of the building and forms an outdoor activity space to provide a beautiful and comfortable office environment for employees. The stairwell on the façade of the podium on the south side is built into a staircase decorative wall through transparent glass and the color design of the wall staircase, which becomes a modern Internet celebrity check-in space, creating a city landmark and shaping the business card of the enterprise.
On the 8th to 12th floors of the tower, the atrium space is cleverly utilized, creating an “innovation canyon” full of innovative atmosphere. It is not only visually striking, but also functionally realizes the efficient connection of vertical space. Large staircases and open staircases provide easy access to each floor of the “vertical community”, making it an excellent place to facilitate exchange and collaborate.
Urban Innovation Center (UIC)
Running through the 8th to 12th floors is the UIC Innovation Center which is a community-based work space. There are not only flexible spaces for learning, roadshow areas, lecture halls, but also for leisure such as fitness areas, catering areas, art corners, sky gardens, etc., which provide a modern service-oriented business experience different from traditional ones. The diversified scenes for social and activities can attract young people, allowing them to enjoy a variety of leisure and entertainment activities in addition to work, truly realize the seamless transition between work and life. (Photography – Interior: Wu Qingshan)
New Retail Offerings
Known to be “One of the most beautiful bookstores in the world”, Tsutaya’s first store have landed in Beijing, together with ONE MOMENT, the first trendy store catered to young people born in the 90s and 00s. The bookstore inherits the DNA of the original Tsutaya bookstore in Daikanyama, offering a diverse selection of books, music, movies and cafe, as well as hosting cultural and offline activities in a SHARE LOUNGE concept.
Penetration of the first floor: The design sets up a high-rise atrium at the main entrance on the north side of the building, highlighting the image of the main entrance of the building, and connecting the north-south traffic of the building from the inside. The podium is vertically connected, and the high atrium leads to a closer commercial connection on all floors, creating a futuristic space.
The sidewalk of Chaoyangmenwai Street in the north has a height difference of 1.3-1.6 meters from the ground level of the first floor of the building, and the design ensures the accessible pedestrian environment on the north side through landscape ramps and steps, and appropriately guides the flow of people into the building.
The main office entrance in the southeast corner of the building creates a two-storey headquarters main entrance, with a view extending from the interior of the building to the exterior landscape.
Curtain Wall
The façade design has been renovated to create a new architectural image of Chaoyangmenwai Street, and the commercial and office buildings have replaced the original closed window wall building image with more transparent glass curtain walls, and the existing curtain wall system has been upgraded with more energy-efficient glass curtain walls.
The original volume of this project is staggered and recessed, there are triangular and other structural decorative components on the outside, the top has been retracted, the glass is green, and there is a large area of green curtain wall, and the building entity is mainly made of light yellow stone; The renovation aims to create a simple, transparent and modern new era building, and drive the transformation and upgrading of Chaoyangmenwai Street. The highest point of the building curtain wall is controlled at 87.6 meters, the number of floors remains unchanged, and the top of the curtain wall adopts a spiral treatment technique to make the building volume more upright.
The roof is used as a roof garden and office meeting space, which is an important place for employees to relax, entertain, work and study, and at the same time carries equipment such as roof water tank room, elevator room and curtain wall window cleaning machine, so the curtain wall is treated with height to cover these necessary mechanical and electrical equipment.
The building’s glass curtain wall shimmers in sea-blue light, the double-height lobby is minimalistic and expansive.
