Moire Pattern of Zhejiang Gateway

LAVA’s Zhejiang Gate Towers complex is an iconic entrance to the city of Hangzhou. The design of the two towers is based on the Chinese characters for ‘gate’, and they feature a shimmering façade of fins.

LAVA was commissioned by Shimao (Hangzhou) in 2014 to masterplan the mixed-use development, which consists of five buildings housing offices, residential, and retail. LAVA’s masterplan features fluid building masses, improved positioning of the towers from different viewing directions, logical pedestrian movement and the removal of cars from the complex.

Tobias Wallisser, director of LAVA said: “The development is located at a major interchange into the city so we wanted to create an iconic gateway to Hangzhou. The high-rise towers are an interpretation of the Chinese characters meaning ‘gate’ or entrance to a city. Utilizing our extensive view studies we positioned the tower ensemble so it is recognizable as a twin structure, a gate, from both near and far.”

LAVA articulated the façade as two groups of long vertical fins wrapped around the buildings. Fluid lines create zones within the tower elevations, whilst different colors of glass and varying depths of vertical fin elements generate refracted light effects animating the façade.

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Materials provided by LAVA