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Architects: Morphosis Architects
Location: Shanghai, China
Client: Giant Interactive Group
Project area: 253,300 sqm
Project year: 2006 – 2010
Photographs: Iwan Baan

The Giant Campus project is a compact village that accommodates diverse functions in a flexible framework of forms that move in and out of a folded landscape plane. Situated amid existing canals and a new man made lake, the undulating office building interacts with an augmented ground plane, joining architecture to landscape and environment to site. The East Campus office building contains three zones: open, non-hierarchical office space; private offices, and executive suites, which cantilever dramatically over the lake.

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Additional program is integrated into the lifted landscape, including a library, an auditorium, an exhibition space, and a café on the east campus. On the West Campus, additional program space-submerged below an expansive, undulating green roof- includes a pool, a multi-purpose sports court, and additional relaxation and fitness spaces for employees. The landform culminates to the west at a company guest hotel where glass-floored private bedroom suites project over a wildlife pond.

Several plazas, carved from the landscape, provide outdoor break and recreational spaces for employees. At the south edge of the campus, a pedestrian plaza steps down to the water’s edge in a continuous outdoor walkway that provides pedestrian access to the lake. The main circulation spine, an enclosed walkway located outboard of the office building, bridges over the street connecting the east and west campuses.

A range of features on the project maximize both energy efficiency and occupant comfort. The West Campus’s landscaped green roof provides thermal mass that limits the heat gain and reduces cooling expenditures. The façade’s double skin and insulated glass curtain wall minimize solar heat gain and improve overall efficiency. The central circulation spine, along with the recreational amenities and plazas provide opportunities for chance encounters and places for employees to gather without the confines of cubicles or unnecessary divisions. The narrow profile of the office building combined with a system of skylights ensure that employees have continuous access to natural daylight.