BEIJING ROAD OFFICE LOFTS
Design: JSA Architects
Location: 540 Beijing Road, Shanghai
Area: 10,121 sqm
Project Year: Completed 2015
This project was about discovering hidden value and creating order in a building with years of incremental additions and modifications, some illegal and some of questionable structural integrity. A tight site locked in by a busy road on one side and activist community on the other presented further challenges.
After selective demolition and structural reinforcement, high loft-like office spaces were revealed and a generous roof terrace with skyline views opened up. Windows were enlarged and re-organized to better appreciate the iconic Shanghai plantain-lined streetscape below.
Original Site Condition
Located in downtown Shanghai, the original building was an unremarkable infill structure situated between 1990s-era mid-rises on one side, and a traditional lanehouse community on the other. The building itself had undergone multiple transformations: additional floors added, a roof occupied by temporary-turned-permanent construction, an exterior stair enclosed and an elevator abandoned. These ordinary features obscured potential, however, such as the roof terrace with its views over Shanghai old and new, as well as the city’s main subsidary waterway, Suzhou Creek.
