Location: Beijing, China.

Architect: OMA – Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

The CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, designed by OMA, is a reinvention of the skyscraper as a loop. The building, which began construction in 2004, is OMA’s largest ever project and its first major building in China. The structure defies the typical quest for ultimate height, with two towers leaning towards each other and merging in a perpendicular, 75-metre cantilever. The design combines the entire process of TV-making into a loop of interconnected activities. The building’s structure is visible on its façade, with a web of diagonals becoming dense in areas of greater stress and looser in areas requiring less support. The project was led by OMA/Rem Koolhaas, with a team of over 100 architects from OMA, and structural and MEP design provided by Cecil Balmond and Arup. The Local Design Institute was ECADI, and design consultants included Front INC, Inside/Outside, DHV, DMJMH+N, Lerch Bates & Associates, LPA, Sandy Brown Associates, and Romano Gatland NY.

Photo credit: Philippe Ruault.