On its highly-coveted site just south of the Dalian International Conference Center, Dalian Greenland Center rises in a move that highlights an emerging verticality for the city’s waterfront skyline. At its significant height, the tower evokes the imperatives of a rapidly urbanizing nation, and establishes an anchor for future development in the surrounding Donggang District.

Triangular in plan, the tower’s three façades ascend prominently from the base, narrowing in width as they rise. Between them, notched recessions evolve along the height of the building, ensuring the unchanged vertical position of the façades. At the precipice, a large aperture breaks the tempo of the design, providing a visual crescendo that merges the top of the tower with the sky. The sheer size of the openings is downplayed by mid-air connections that extend between varying heights on either side. From afar, the tower appears as a beacon, much like a lighthouse, with an illuminated top that is sure to turn a few heads.

The skin of the tower is composed of triangular glass panels that alternate their orientation to create a scaled texture for the building’s curtain wall. Conversely, the recessions between the main façades – which similarly run along three orientations – are of a much smoother texture and allow more light to reach the interior, establishing an antithetic dialogue that accentuates the upward transformation from triangular to hexagonal floor plates.

Dalian Greenland Center will be complemented by a four-story building at the base that grounds the building to the human scale. The tower itself will feature a mixture of high-quality office space, luxury hotels, and apartments with views of the Yellow Sea.