Located within Guangzhou’s new central business district, Kingold Century is a mixed-use tower which from the start of the design process was intended to look different. The development team wanted a building which would stand out amid the similarities of other recently completed tall buildings in China. The rectilinear tower footprint aligns to the street grid, but the tower form is then softened by curved corners and a tapering of the upper floors as it rises towards the crown. The building is set back on a small plaza on all sides and has an adjacent four story podium with a circular atrium extending southward from the tower footprint.

The tower is a composite structure rising from a deep four story basement extending to the edges of the entire site. The frame is composed of steel columns and floor plates encased with poured in place concrete with the structure maintaining a typical column layout throughout the height of the tower. The columns begin to slope inward where the tapering of the tower form begins in the upper floors. The crown is then formed through a steel frame constructed atop the main roof and clad with angled fins while maintaining the tapering form.

The facade utilizes bands of thick horizontal spandrels, deemphasizing verticality while adding definition to the corners where the spandrels increase in size and serve as railings for exterior balconies. The balconies offer outdoor spaces to the occupants in areas of the floorplate where highly coveted corner offices normally would be in a traditional interior layout. The spandrels rotate from a vertical profile at the corners to a horizontal extension of the façade to create fins for a second functional purpose: to provide passive solar shading and reduce energy consumption in the warm and humid climate of southern China. The shading features also provide for interplay of light and shadow, changing the visual appearance of the façade throughout the day.