NBBJ L.A.-designed Chinatrust Bank Headquarters Breaks Ground

After an international design competition and nearly two years of design, the high-profile, 2.5-million-square-foot Chinatrust Bank headquarters has broken ground in Taiwan. Designed by the Los Angeles office of NBBJ, in cooperation with the local firm Fei & Cheng Associates, the project is slated to reach completion in 2012.

The Chinatrust Bank development will consist of a 30-story headquarters building, a 21-story commercial office building, a 10-story hotel, and a four-level retail center. The project is designed to accommodate the bank’s growth, while supporting its status as the “Best Bank in Taiwan,” as named in Asiamoney, Euromoney, and FinanceAsia publications.

Inspired by Chinatrust’s corporate philosophy, which emphasizes a family-like relationship between the bank and its clients, the winning design creates an office tower that works to inspire informal connections and communication in a progressive way.  The tower has a series of vertical atriums carved into it creating “centers” or vertical courtyards (like the traditional Chinese house). These spaces work to break the typical horizontal orientation of the high-rise office tower and add a vertical dimension, thus amplifying the visual and physical communication within the work place. The headquarters building is arranged in a conversation-like manner between the supporting towers and a community-centered retail base.  A central plaza, open to the public for various functions, forms the heart of the complex.

The building is designed to take advantage of natural site and climate features to optimize the passive heating/cooling design opportunities. The podium is covered in lush roof gardens, reducing rainwater runoff and urban-heat-island effect. The facades of the office towers will feature the latest in intelligent curtainwall design, optimized for maximum natural daylight through narrow floor plates, with floor-to-ceiling glass and automatic sensors.  All of the above features will dramatically reduce the energy consumption of the overall complex.  Chinatrust is benchmarking with the Taiwanese equivalent of a LEED-NC Gold rating.