COFCO Plaza was built in 1996 and it occupies one of the best locations in the city; located 1 KM from the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square along Jianguomen street at the cross with Chang’an Avenue. The building is the symbol of an era in COFCO’s development as it was the first modern headquarter building for COFCO; a Fortune 500 company and one of China’s most important enterprises; and it was a witness to the incredible development of the company from a local enterprise into a world class business operating primarily in the food and real estate industries and stands as the embodiment of the COFCO spirit. While the main headquarters of the group moved to new premises over one year ago; the building still houses many main departments and is also home to the China headquarter offices for many large domestic and multi-national enterprises. Moreover the building is also representative of a style of public architecture of Beijing in the 1990’s.

Prior to its renovation the central core of the building was home to many home-furniture showrooms, however this market had shifted to new locations in Beijing over the years and the determination was made to re-position the area to more corporate / office functions. Kokaistudios however did not take a traditional approach and instead we conceived of these areas as a hybrid office / hospitality project; where we would create both offices and also communal areas to support the function of main offices that occupied the towers above.

This hybrid area contains fitness, dining, and business conference functions supporting the office towers and COFCO has established its own branded '3C' System for the office building; COFFICE (Smart Office System), COFCO Life (Dinning and Healthy Life) and COFCO Fantasy (Innovation Space, Shared Office and Gallery Exhibition).The upgrade and reconstruction of Block C and the North-South axis to Block A& B has created an entirely new feeling to the building with the ground floor of Block C now functioning as an open city 'piazza' with customers inter-mingling and mixing on their way to the various areas of the building complex. The new service functions are a destination in and off-them-selves and create an appealing working and living urban environment for the users of the building.

The target of the interior design intervention was first and foremost simplicity. We wanted to eliminate the variations of the existing decorations that were not in harmony with the architectural space and recover the original concise spatial relationships of the building. With the architectural interventions programmed for Stage 2 of the project - in particular the demolition of the slab above the entrance in Block B - the 3 main Blocks will respectively be characterized by the main geometric shapes of the hexagon, the square and the pentagon.

The re-design of the façade is also a representative of the fine line between the preservation of the original design of the building in Block A and B and the striving for innovation with the Block C building façade. Previously composed as an entirely solid block, it has being re-designed to meet the new needs of the office tenant areas as well as to gain its own individual expression and presence within the complex, while maintaining an equilibrium with the other two blocks.

This focus on creating an inviting and comfortable environment guided the selection of materials, with an emphasis on sustainability, and plenty of green-spaces that have resulted in a tranquil environment that stands in strong contrast to the dull patterns of conventional office buildings.