SOMs High-Rise Pagoda

Pagodas have long been a staple of Chinese architecture over the millennia, and now Skidmore Owings and Merrill look like adding further to this tradition with their winning entry to design a skyscraper in Zhengzhou.

Pagodas are essentially towers with multiple tiers, each one marked out by eaves, and often with a finial, or decorated pinnacle, at the top of the structure as exhibited by the local Erqi Memorial Tower with its 14 floors.

The SOM design for Greenland Plaza exhibits these characteristics with twelve tiers over its 279.3 metres of height and the appearance of eaves created by angling the projecting facades outwards slightly from the building envelope.

With circular floor plates offering 240,000 square metres of space and a tapering top, the basic egg-shape of the building is broadly similar to that of the Torre Agbar although the eaves have transformed it into something more Chinese looking.

Inside the building there will be ill have a central atrium running up much of its upper part allowing the doughnut shaped floors to be naturally illuminated and ventilated from the inside of the building as well as providing an impressive cathedral-proportioned space for tenants to enjoy in lieu of roof terraces.

Greenland Plaza is currently under construction and is due to be set to be ready for occupation in 2011.