_{Image courtesy of SOM}

Greenland Group Suzhou Center
Status: Ongoing
Location: Wujiang, China

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have won a competition to design a skyscraper for China with proposals that incorporate a 30-storey-high opening window. The 358-metre-high Suzhou Center will be the sixth building the architects have designed for Chinese property developers the Greenland Group and is to be located beside Taihu Lake in Wujiang.

_{Image courtesy of SOM}

Like sculpting a high-performance automobile, digital aerodynamic modeling was critical to shaping this 358-meter supertall tower. Acting as the “lung” of the building, the tower’s atrium is defined by a 30-story tall operable window, that invites cool air flow during summer months and floods the interior spaces with natural light.         

_{Image courtesy of SOM}

The atrium has also been designed to facilitate mixed-mode ventilation in the lobbies and public spaces, providing a fresh air supply source for the building and its inhabitants. A series of high-efficiency measures employed in the tower are predicted to achieve a 60 percent savings in energy consumption as compared to a conventional American high-rise.

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