Unlike typical rental or sales office buildings, a headquarters office demands a tailored design.
Architects must engage directly with users to understand their needs,
grasp the brand’s aesthetic identity,
and translate it into the architectural language of space.
This type of project is grounded in reality and clear logic,
yet it also allows room for creativity beyond mere problem-solving.
Resonant Magnetic Field
More than just office buildings
For corporations, headquarters buildings establish a resonant magnetic field between the company’s culture and its physical environment. They become a “second home” for employees, fostering a unique sense of belonging and cohesion. For cities, as major enterprises emerge and large-scale headquarters are built, these buildings have the potential to function as new urban complexes—operating independently while contributing to the city’s vitality.
Differences Between Headquarters and Rental Offices (GOA x CTBUH Headquarters Seminar)
The Goa Elephant Design Team, founded in 2012, spent seven years completing a custom headquarters building for Yasha Group. Yasha Group is a renowned player in China’s construction and decoration industry, specializing in building exterior walls and interior decoration. Their corporate identity is marked by a stable, clear aesthetic and a professional, persistent pursuit of engineering excellence.
Throughout the creative process, Yasha’s corporate culture deeply influenced every phase, from concept to detail. Architects embedded their care for office space and urban life thoughtfully, resulting in a project that reflects a harmonious resonance of these two forces.
The Art of Stacking Boxes
Complexity Within Simple Order
The site is situated roughly 10 kilometers from Hangzhou’s old city center in a largely undeveloped area of high potential. The land is a rectangular plot with an approximate 1:2 aspect ratio, covering about 35,400 square meters. While planned as a new exhibition district, it was initially an empty urban space when design began in 2012.
Project Location Map (Qiantang River, 12.2 km from Wuyun Mountain in Hangzhou’s main urban area)
After exploring design directions, architects clarified that the client’s core requirement was not an iconic office form but rather a high-quality, stable spatial atmosphere expressed with simplicity. The challenge was how to create visual and spatial interest within a flat, symmetrical, and stable layout.
Volume Study (80m tower contrasts with environment; 50m tower integrates harmoniously)
The architects aligned the building volumes with the mountain sightlines, designing four 12-story towers at 50 meters tall. This configuration creates a tranquil spatial relationship both internally and externally. Each office tower has a nearly rectangular floor plan, arranged symmetrically on the site’s short sides, with two unequal sections along the long side based on capacity needs.
△ Master Layout Plan
The simple structural framework holds great potential. By organizing elements into clean square volumes, the overall space gains richness through the logical relationships and hierarchical layering of these “boxes.” Each box’s six interfaces define distinct spatial qualities, and the interfaces between boxes create dynamic relationships. What seems like a straightforward design evolves into a sophisticated game of stacked volumes. These forms develop into towers, courtyards, entrance canopies, and pedestrian bridges, creating a vibrant spatial sequence that elegantly solves the initial design challenge.
Concept Development
△ Conceptual Profile
Stacking Boxes: Lines, Surfaces, and Volumes
A Semi-Open Garden
Balancing Urbanization and Privacy
Initially, the architect envisioned the park as a “space with a strong sense of identity, yet open to the city.” Based on discussions with the client, the goal was for the headquarters to offer activity spaces for employees while also welcoming outsiders. This approach was intended to maintain the vibrancy of the commercial area at the park’s edge, integrate the building with the urban fabric, and support the new city’s development.
Initial Functional Planning
The architect imagined a headquarters with a degree of openness.
However, as the design advanced, this vision conflicted with the client’s strong demand for controlled management. The compromise became “visible but inaccessible,” where architects sought to foster a sense of connection through enhanced sightlines.
Visible but unreachable
The originally open, walkable lower courtyard became a “semi-open” garden. Landscape water features and sunken areas within channels dividing the podium volumes limit physical access while preserving unobstructed views. Covered grey spaces along the boundary allow passersby to glimpse the headquarters interior through glass.
The office lobby features ultra-white glass, creating a visual corridor.
The grey boundary space offers views from outside in.
Flat Building Skin
Layering Basic Elements to Create Refined Texture
The facade design continues the theme of “simplicity and richness,” presenting a completely flat yet meticulously crafted surface that reflects the company’s image. Building skin is usually categorized as transparent, semi-transparent, or opaque, but combining these with materials, colors, and textures yields infinite expressions.
The main building curtain wall is divided into 1.3-meter-high modules aligned with 3.9-meter ceiling heights, featuring horizontal protrusions and vertically concealed joints separated only by thin 25mm metal strips on the glass surface. The podium skin integrates fully transparent ultra-white glass, milky white or gray printed glass, gray or champagne metal grilles, gray granite curtain walls, and various stainless steel finishes tailored to spatial needs. These materials are assembled in fine linear patterns that maintain simplicity while conveying a delicate texture.
Flat Building Skin
Window ventilation in glass curtain walls has long posed a challenge. Natural ventilation supports energy saving and aligns with traditional Chinese living concepts, but poorly placed operable windows can disrupt the minimalist facade. Ergonomically, the architect placed operable fans about 60cm above floor level to deliver natural airflow to seated occupants. Various methods to conceal the opening fans were tested, including perforated aluminum panels and full-scale mockups. Ultimately, the owners chose a traditional opening system.
△ Curtain Wall Facade: Operable Window Fan and Construction Details (Aluminum Horizontal Lines, Opening Windows)
The entrance hall glass ribs feature extremely fine hooked edges, combining LOW-E tempered insulating glass, laminated tempered glass, aluminum grilles, ultra-white steel laminated glass ribs, 19mm tempered glass panels, brushed anti-fingerprint stainless steel door frames, and 12mm tempered glass floor bounce doors.
Thanks to Yasha Group’s expertise and high standards in exterior wall decoration, this project incorporates advanced techniques such as an 11-meter-high printed glass panel only 0.4 meters wide, and a 38-meter-high cable curtain wall. Structural details that require subtlety—like hooked edges on small curtain wall units, glass rib joints, and floodlighting fixtures—are all carefully controlled within minimal dimensions.
Inside the Office Lobby
Alignment of Interior and Exterior Details
The principle of “integrated” design permeates the entire project. Architects carefully coordinated architectural, landscape, and interior design to maintain consistent alignment. Managing skin divisions was among the most challenging tasks. All divisions follow virtual axes and use uniform modular units. For example, when structural conditions required shifting skin placement, adjustments were localized to the final panel without altering the overall modular grid. This adherence to consistent principles and benchmarks enabled architects to achieve precise facade alignment despite complex multidisciplinary collaboration.
Reflecting on the entire design process, the architect’s role resembles that of a bespoke tailor, continuously seeking harmony between design ideals and user needs within given constraints, and ultimately delivering a solution that resonates within the urban context.
The challenge of exploring “the openness of corporate headquarters toward the city”—although not fully realized—provided a genuine and meaningful experience.
Project Information
Design Firm: Goa Elephant Design
Company Website: www.goa.com.cn
Location: Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Design/Completion Period: 2011–2017
Building Area: 180,000 square meters
Lead Architects: He Jun, Zhang Xun
Design Team: Fang Ting, Wang Jin, Li Lingjie, Ma Jia
Architectural Photography: Ziran Architectural Photography
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