GOA Headquarters / goa

Curated by 韩双羽 - HAN Shuangyu

Architects: GOA (Group of Architects)
Area: 16900 m²
Year: 2020
Photographs:OōEli

Text description provided by the architects. Headquartered in OōEli Comprehensive Art Park, Hangzhou, the interior design of GOA is done by its own team, which follows the rigorous modulus system of architectures in the park. Meanwhile, this building manages to integrate the work scenes of large design companies into it, expressing a delicate and rich sentiment in the overall style of “Cool and Natural”.

Lobby on the 1^st Floor: A Concentrated Display of Integrated Design
GOA’s newheadquarters is located in Building 9-10 of OōEli Park, covering an area of about 16,900 square meters and integrating office, meeting room, gym, and canteen. It not only provides an ideal office environment for designers' daily creative work, but also incorporates GOA’s design standards. As a whole-process and integrated designer for OōEli Park, GOA has provided comprehensive and systematic technical impetus for the design of the entire project for more than seven years. The interior design of its headquarters respects the architectural style of the park and adopts uniform style in building and interior design.

The exposed treatment of the fair-faced concrete structure is one of the most important features of the entire park. The lobby on the 1^st floor of the GOA headquarters continues the overall architecture style of the park, featuring concise and plain design language. The only “trace” on the wall is the projected image. The exquisite fair-faced concrete wall is formed at one time, and the impressive structural members also act as the centerpiece of the interior space.

Terrace Atrium: An Open Vertical Library
From the 3^rd to 7^th floor, two full-height atriums connect all open office areas to form a vertical terrace library. The diversified usage scenarios also make here a free school:

GOA Headquarters / goa - Interior Photography, Closet, Shelving, Facade — Atrium on the 5th to 7th floor. Image Courtesy of goa

The atrium on the 5^th to 7^th floor, provided with projection, screen, sound facilities, and lighting, can be transformed into a lecture theatre at any time to hold lectures for more than 100 people. The atrium on the 3^rd to 4^th floor marks out multiple small discussion areas in which people can share the space without disturbing each other through using the height difference. The immersive book exhibition and convenient traffic flow make it an ideal space for “learning at work”.

Conference Center on the 8^th Floor: More Exchanges, More Sharing
Meeting is one of the most important contents of the designer’s daily work. The conference center on the 8^th floor is designed with 10 meeting rooms with different sizes, in order to satisfy the meeting needs of 1 to 30 people. Three large meeting rooms can also be connected to make up an open space that is able to accommodate 150 persons. All conference venues are managed by an electronic reservation system that can be used by every member of the company, bringing an open and efficient experience for sharing and exchanges.

In the south of the conference center, there is a public landscape terrace and an open leisure area with nicest view. Designers hoped to extend the important concept of the park - “natural and green core” to the interior design, so that more landscape, sunlight and fresh air could be introduced into the room to enhance the transparency of the space, and thus give people a comfortable, bright and clear sense. The furnishing intentionally weakens the sense of direction, making the leisure area more open, and the eclectic furniture more interesting.

Materials Lab: A Collection Or A Studio
The material laboratory of GOA is named “g material lab”, with an area of more than 200 square meters and a collection of more than 1,000 architectural and indoor materials. The data platform developed by GOA collects the information about specifications, origins and manufacturers of every material, as well as the photos of projects employing these materials. Architects can directly scan the code with their mobile phones to search information, which is convenient and efficient. The material lab is both an exhibition hall and a studio. The bright natural light is able to show the texture and color of the material in real conditions, and guarantee the accuracy of material selection, achieving “1:1”design effect.

Office Area on the 9^th Floor: Light and Shadow, Inside and Outside
The most distinctive part of the office area on the 9^th floor is the sunshine atrium. The cosy wooden surface material and striking evergreen plants endow the space a sense of stability and privacy, where people can only feel the existence of the external environment and the elapse of time through the changes of light and shadow. This implicit dialogue between inside and outside fills the space with tension. Meanwhile, designers meticulously integrated the structural modulus and function to skillfully hide the office facilities and storage spaces.

Open Office Area: Complex Logic in Simple Modulus
Ceilings in conventional projects are often designed to cover complex electromechanical systems and irregular structural members, while here the rhythmic visual effect of visible ceilings is one of the overall features of the buildings in the “OōEli” Park. All exposed concrete beams are controlled in horizontal 9m×9m modular grids. The structure and electromechanical organization within the ceiling are extremely complex in logic, and the interior designer team has been involved at the building scheme stage. After discussing with architects, structural engineers, and electromechanical engineers, they made a painstaking investigation and integrated elements under the guidance of specific aesthetic principles. At the level of design execution, it is necessary to properly handle the embedded positions of equipment like luminaire, sprayers, grilles and air ducts based on the structure, in order to ensure that the beam sump is formed at one time to bring an indoor visual effect.

Operation Center on the 3^rd Floor: Diversified Exhibition Design
The operation center on the 3^rd floor is designed to open a window for visitors to know more about GOA’s corporate culture, classic works, and artistic cross-border achievements. The eye-catching exhibition design incorporates a full set of corporate cultural products and previous publications, as well as vivid engineering videos. In addition, visitors can also browse through the advanced interactive triple screen to access GOA in a much freer way and learn about the stories of these creators.

B1: Canteen
What does an ideal canteen for designers look like? You may find the answer right here. Located on B1 of the building, the sunken courtyard provides an attractive dining environment - plenty of sunlight and Karesansui landscape - bringing diners a wonderful dining experience through a transparent interface. The Karesansui landscape is designed by Shunmyo Masuno, a Japanese Karasansui designer.