he Vigorous Thick Wall

Architects:XFRAME

Area :2400 m²

Year :2023

Photographs :yuuuunstudio

Lead Architect :Yuwei Wang

Design Team : Naichen Wang, Zhengyou Chen, Xinyi Lv, Wei Zhang, Tamim Negm

Chief Construction And Tectonic Consultants : David Song

Construction : VCAN

Client : Tezign Shanghai Information Technology Co Ltd

City : Shanghai

Country : China

Located at the Lumina Center on the West Bund of Shanghai, Tezign is a well-known Internet and AI technology company featuring diverse working models and relatively flat management methods. Employees have the freedom to define their roles and ways of working. At the beginning of the project, the client described the entire office environment and atmosphere as a school campus, hoping that employees could freely choose to adapt their corner or switch between multi scenarios.

Our design strategy is to consider the entire working environment as a city. Through the typological method, we have inducted 4 scenarios and propose 4 types: Monuments, Dwellings, Streets, and Townhall. They respectively correspond to: 1/The ‘thick wall’ as a monumental infrastructure, employees can choose different spatial types according to the nature of their work. 2/ Dwellings – Undefined usages of customized furniture and facilities. 3/Street—an interpretable interface between monuments and dwellings. 4/ Townhall – a multifunctional square prepared for large-scale events, exhibitions, and lectures.

By using the ‘Thick Wall’ concept, a 3D space is extruded from the two-dimensional wall of the fire circular walkway which is then hollowed out by fixed programs such as meetings, informal discussions, phone calls, live broadcast rooms, storage compartments, and libraries. Therefore, the thick wall is an infrastructure that can be reserved and used according to demand. We hope that it constitutes a symbol like a monument in the city, with a gesture of refusal to prevent the entry of various personal items and informal ways of use.

Dwellings – a space to be defined. The wooden boxes in the open office area, the semi-open thick wall space, and the office furniture that can be combined freely allow flexibility according to groups’ interests and habits. The inserted wooden box among working desks allows employees to depart from their computers and have a quick discussion at any time, or switch to a private working scenario.

The open area of thick walls and wooden boxes become an extension of the office area, a place where inspiration and thinking collide at any time. We customized the desk with marine boards that can be used for storage. The different orientations of the seat layout can deregulate the way of use, and the void space between them allows employees to define.

The street is a space between the thick wall and the uncertain open working area. The open area of the thick wall work with the pantry to allow chance encounters and guide informal communication to happen at any time. A third scenario other than focused working and focused communication has been formed. We hope that what people can see while walking on the ‘street’ is a changing street facade, so that the shape of the thick wall echoes the internal program, sometimes transparent and sometimes closed. Sometimes you can peek inside through the circular window, and sometimes you can sit down on a street bench.

The large space at the entrance is named town hall, which is equipped with a pantry, multi-functional room, meeting room, interview room, bulletin board, and other ancillary functions. The steps, through changes, can enclose various scenes such as theaters, exhibition halls, team building, training, etc.