The brand new stock exchange building in Shenzhen, China is almost nearing completion. Conceived and developed by Rem Koolhaas' Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), the building will be the second largest structure in China. The building is slated to open in May 2013.
OMA won a competition in 2006 to design the stock exchange building. The structure has been designed to physically represent a virtual stock market. The 46 story tower is 254 meters tall and has a raised podium on the base that emphasizes the euphoric speculations of the stock market. The raised podium is a three-floor pavilion consisting of the listing hall and all other stock departments. Each floor spans an area of 15000 square meters. At the roof of the podium is a landscaped garden.
The building has been designed with dark neutral glass, so it can change colors in different climatic conditions. The glass also creates a deep façade that controls the amount of sunlight entering the building and improves natural day light and reduces energy consumption during the day. The building is one of the first 3-star green rated towers in China.
According to Dezeen:
The 46-storey (254m) Shenzhen Stock Exchange is a Financial Center with civic meaning. Located in a new public square at the meeting point of the north-south axis between Mount Lianhua and Binhe Boulevard, and the east-west axis of Shennan Road, Shenzhen's main artery, it engages the city not as an isolated object, but as a building to be reacted to at multiple scales and levels. At times appearing massive and at others intimate and personal, SZSE constantly generates new relationships within the urban context, hopefully as an impetus to new forms of architecture and urbanism.
Take a look at the almost completed structure in the slideshow here.