SOHO SICHUAN NORTH ROAD

Located in Shanghai, the 135m tall Hongkou SOHO tower on Sichuan North Road was completed in 2015. Located in an old city area, this project is surrounded by large amount of residential buildings. In order to reduce the light pollution from glass curtain wall to its neighborhood, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, designed large scale decorative fins wrapping around the building, which gives the building a very unique and dynamic appearance.

The entire structure is characterised by large 3D-shaped aluminium woven mesh ribbons which run down the building as an outer envelope. Depending on the time of day and position of the sun, the pleats produce a interesting play in light and shadow and the strips appear to flutter in the breeze.

Inhabit provided full process façade consultant services including design, specification, tender, shop drawing review and construction supervision.

“Design and installation of the aluminium woven mesh ribbons was very challenging, as they are more than 1m wide and have a varying depth of 600-700mm. As the ribbons drape themselves towards the base of the building they splay out 4~5m by way of a cantilevered steel framework that gives the impression of a flaring canopy.”
Xue-kun Qian, Executive Director and Founding Partner, Shanghai

The scale of the 135m ribbons, can be seen relative to the people walking at the base of the building in the photo below left.