Ping An Asset Tower
Our foundational project features a soaring tower with an uplifted base.
The Ping An Asset Tower is a 208-meter commercial tower in Shenzhen, won through an international competition. Uplifted at its base to create a dramatic public passage, and crowned with a “butterfly roof” solarium, the tower embodies a new identity for both client and city. Its origami-like folds break free of rigid precedent, carving spaces of light, air, and connection within the urban fabric.
A New Beginning
The Ping An Asset Tower was a formative project for Planetworks — our first major commission, won through an international design competition. For our founding team, it was also deeply personal. Having designed the neighboring 600-meter Ping An Finance Tower and adjacent Park Hyatt Hotel for the same client, this was literally the third tower in a row on the same street. The challenge was clear: preserve continuity with its predecessors while breaking free from the rigidity of corporate convention to establish a new identity of our own.
Breaking the Mold
The breakthrough came at the base. City regulations required a pedestrian skybridge along the site edge, a move that would have severed the lobby and drop-off. Instead, we lifted the tower, carving out a dramatic public thru-fare beneath. This gesture resolved the conflict practically, while also transforming the building’s relationship with the city: an open, permeable ground plane animated by vegetation, reflective surfaces, and intimate moments of pause beneath the soaring mass of the tower.
Origami Architecture
Our design language emerged as an origami architecture — folds and cuts in the mass that opened the building to its context. These gestures softened the monolithic tower typology, creating pockets of light and air while generating opportunities for engagement at the base and crown.
What began as a solution to site-specific constraints revealed itself as a versatile architectural system. The origami logic proved to be a versatile design toolkit that could evolve across subsequent projects to generate distinctive forms while remaining deeply responsive to context.
A Breathing Building
Mirroring the base, the tower culminates in a distinctive crown — a “butterfly roof” conceived as the inversion of the uplifted base. Housing a solarium, the roof opens with glass louvers to draw fresh air through a trellised canopy, reinforcing the idea of a breathing building. It marked a departure from the sealed glass-and-steel facades of PAFC 1 and 2, signaling a more open, engaged architecture.
For Planetworks, the Ping An Asset Tower became more than a project: it was a declaration of identity. A tower in dialogue with its siblings yet confident in its own expression — connected to its urban fabric, animated at its base, and alive at its crown.
