海角视频

Lankuaikei Agriculture Development (LAD) Headquarters

Shanghai, China

In the face of the climate and biodiversity crises, and the rising global population, food security, safety and agricultural resilience are increasingly the focus of many of the world鈥檚 leading technology innovators.

In China, new artificial intelligence-based technologies are now taking much of the rigour out of agricultural work and revolutionising the lives of the nation鈥檚 rural population, while also improving the country鈥檚 resilience around the production of food crops.

The Lankuaikei Agriculture Development (LAD) Headquarters in Shanghai is an 11-storey terraced office building that brings together both high-tech and low-tech sustainable solutions to act as a showcase for the agriculture technology company.

The building is conceived as an agricultural oasis in a rapidly developing urban area in Shanghai, and one of China鈥檚 greenest, smartest, and most inspiring buildings, which it is hoped will engage people with 21st century farming and the innovations being brought to the sector.

Challenge

海角视频 was engaged as energy and sustainability consultant on the distinctive building, which integrates such an extraordinary range of low carbon solutions, it has been dubbed a 鈥榮ustainability machine鈥�.

The client鈥檚 aim was to achieve an energy neutral, zero emission, zero water building, which would be at the vanguard of sustainable construction in China. Our role was to devise a comprehensive strategy to achieve these objectives.

Specialising in artificial intelligence technologies, the client wanted their new lakeside headquarters to demonstrate and embody their ambitions and ethos to reconnect people with nature through sustainable tech.

Designed by lead architect MVRDV, with co-architect ECADI, the building will include offices and laboratories as well as an auditorium, exhibition and retail space. But it鈥檚 most distinctive feature, a sweeping roof, is carefully designed to offer shade to verdant terraces that will showcase many of the organisation鈥檚 technologies in action.

The client鈥檚 ambitious energy aspirations across both operational and embodied carbon had to be carefully weighed against the restrictions of the location 鈥� such as the necessity to work with a pre-existing district heating system and the challenge of sourcing timber for the wood-facades of the terraces locally.

Planning permission limited how much of the swooping canopy was allowed to be weatherproof, requiring a careful balancing act between solar PV, rainwater harvesting and the shading function of the canopy.

Solution

We provided design driving input shaping the building, supported by analysis and simulation. Our experts carefully modelled and analysed potential energy use and devised a comprehensive strategy, encompassing features such as solar shading, rainwater harvesting, fans that efficiently move the air around the building and pumps that transport water.

We incorporated a high-performance facade in a pleated arrangement of solar photovoltaic and glass. The facade has been angled to protect the interior from the summer sun while allowing the winter sun to enter, reducing the amount of heating needed while optimising the amount of daylight all year round.

To maximise the number of solar panels located on the roof we needed to closely examine the spacing and sizing. We used standard sized solar panels so that we could keep the costs reasonable and for easy replacement considering the rapid changes in this technology.

The rest of the canopy has been optimised to provide shading to the facade below using less material than if the shading had been applied directly to the facade. The spacing has also been calculated in such a way to enhance daylighting and lessen reliance on artificial lighting.

We also incorporated a rainwater harvesting system. Rainwater can reach the balconies through the permeable canopy. The balconies offered an opportunity for a significant portion of the rainwater attenuation as well as the first filtration. This is followed by a secondary filtration and then pressurisation to allow water to pass through the building for toilet flushing.

Timber cladding is quite an unusual approach in Shanghai and represented a significant challenge. There was a lack of easily available construction timber, but we were able to incorporate it as a surface finish, particularly internally and on the spaces facing into the courtyard. No structural timber was used, just cladding. The benefit of using wood is that it has less embodied energy as the material has a low carbon footprint.

We elected to go for locally available prefabricated elements that have high embodied energy rather than importing wood from Europe and Canada. This also had a positive local socio-economic impact.

Value

The design was informed by a lot of considered input from our experts. Drawing on our extensive experience of meeting challenging energy targets, we went through a careful process of identifying what was needed to reduce emissions and maximise energy efficiency and generation.  

The result will be a building that is almost entirely energy neutral. This will be one of the first buildings trying to achieve this goal in the area, making it a landmark project as China increasingly turns its attentions to zero carbon goals.