Lumina Shanghai

Lumina Shanghai, also known as the Henderson Xuhui Tower, is a 61-floor contemporary skyscraper in Xuhui, Shanghai. It was designed by Xiaomei Lee and Raymon Chen of Gensler and built from 2017 to 2021. According to CTBUH, as of March 2024, at 285.1m, it is the tallest building in Xuhui, the seventh-tallest building in Shanghai, 151st-tallest in China, 180th-tallest in Asia, and 288th-tallest in the world. The building has received a LEED Gold pre-certification and a China Green 3-star certification for sustainability.

Site
Lumina Shanghai is located in the waterfront area of Xuhui, a major development site outlined in the 'Shanghai Master Plan 2017-2035' by the Shanghai Municipal People's Government, where it is part of the 'central activity zone'. In the document, it calls for a 'Focus on building a core cultural and functional area of the Expo-Qiantan-Xuhui waterfront area, leading global functions such as innovation, creativity and culture', and also calls for the construction of landmarks in this area as well.

Neighbouring Lumina Shanghai, are the West Bund Media Port, West Bund Smart Valley, and West Bund Financial Centre, which are managed by state-owned Shanghai West Bund Development (Group) Co., Ltd, which is responsible for developing the Xuhui waterfront area.

The building is connected to Line 11 of the Shanghai Metro at Longyao Road station, on Exits 1 and 2. It is also connected to the West Bund Media Port through elevated paths.

Architecture


Lumina Shanghai is a contemporary skyscraper that provides 254,498m2 of floor area for office and retail space, whilst occupying 18,622m2 of ground area.

Lumina Shanghai, inspired by Shanghai's city flower, the magnolia flower, is a cuboid with curved edges. The top, similar to the client, Henderson Land Development's, headquarters at the International Finance Centre, features a crown, with its design symbolising continued growth, inspired by a flower bud, and to boldly mark the highest point of the riverside.

The design for the façade features a transparent, glass, curved, curtain wall, which are designed to exaggerate the 'erect posture' of the building. The building uses many vertical decorative fins for sun-shading. The transparent design provides more natural lighting in the building. The curtain walls are cantilevered on the four corners of the building.

The lighting of the building features a strip of light down all corners, and the crown has multiple short vertical strips of light to emphasise it. The light temperature is 3000k in winter, as it is warmer and 'warms the city', and 4000k in winter.

Engineering


The skyscraper uses a tube-in-tube system, where the inner core supports the building in combination with an external moment-resisting frame. The lift system is located within the core tube. Designers used building information modelling to optimise the size of the core tube so that more floor area could be used.

Designers used computational fluid dynamics to analyse the effects of wind resistance on the building and, considering the views as well, optimised the building's rotation.

The tower adopts an efficient lift system. Users would first arrive at the sky lobby from the ground floor via a double-cabin shuttle lift, then can transit to inter-regional lifts reaching different floors.

The design of the curtain walls combines high-performance insulating glass with vertical and horizontal aluminium decorative bars to create an efficient modular unit for the curtain walls.

Sustainability
The vertical fins provide shade, and the transparent façade increases natural lighting, reducing energy consumption. A building envelope system composed of LOW-E glass decreases heat loss, and a rainwater recycling system and solar energy water heating further reduce water and energy consumption, where 44.92% of water consumption is recycled.