NANHAI OIL COMPANY HEADQUARTERS AND CAPITAL HOTEL PLAZA

DESCRIPTIVE DATA

Project No. 9:            Nanhai Oil Company Headquarters                                       and Capital Hotel Plaza
Architecture Firm                                                                 of Record:                 Nadel Partnership
Design Firm:             Nadel Partnership
Completion Date:      1993 Design Competition Winner
Role of Nominee:      Principal Designer

This competition winner was designed to be the new headquarters for the Nanhai Oil Company and become the new symbolic/visual center for the entire Nantou Region and redefine a new sense of place for the synergistic mixed-use office, hotel, exhibition, and retail functions. In creating a unifying circle that encompasses and unites the activities on both sides of the Nanhai Oil Road, the curved shape of the 68 story glass tower is contrasted with the stone face and glazed stack atriums of the 42 story hotel and the long 8 story stone faced office/exhibition building across the street. The curved form generated from the existing administrative office building and the curved walkway linkage creates the public plaza space and allows pedestrian and vehicular traffic be separated while maintaining functional connection. The office tower north glass and stainless steel façade has terraced setbacks that acknowledge the scale of the hotel and lower buildings (and provide alternative lease depths) while the flush south curtainwall façade ends with a roof terrace and a shading trellis symbolically gesturing toward Hong Kong to the south. 

The 160,000 sm office building has floor plates that typically vary from 1,800 to 2,400 sm.The exterior material is predominately high performance green glass with stainless mullions and detailed panels with a stone clad exposed core element. The 65,000 sm, 800 room hotel has typically 20 rooms single loaded per floor around 4 stacked landscaped atriums and has a hotel base with lobby and ballroom/function rooms. The façade is stone and precast with the glazed expressed atriums.  The 12,000 sm retail/commercial space faces the street level plaza and lower plaza levels with its parking predominately below grade in 2 levels. Next to the office tower is a 10 story office  parking structure  for a total of 1450 spaces for the east parcel. The west parcel has 90,000 sm of new office/exhibition space with 10,000 sm of below grade retail and parking for 200 spaces. 

Landscaping and plaza development are key to the spatial development of the public exterior space. Large royal palm trees line Nanhai Oil Road to create a new “campus perception” zone along Nanhai Road while tightly trimmed bosquet of ficus trees provide definition and containment with a lush invitation to the activities on the multi-level main plaza with its textured stone pavement and
fountain/pool with waterfall/trough. Campus pedestrian circulation at street level is also enhanced via an above grade circular pedestrian walkway and a below grade pedestrian concourse connecting the development on either side of Nanhai Road.

AWARDS RECEIVED:        

                 1993 COMPETITION FIRST PRIZE AWARD