A manufacturer’s office is where clients are received, deals are signed and staff decide whether to stay. We design headquarters, offices inside factory complexes, canteens and dormitories, and the showrooms and stores where a brand meets its customers, in the same language as the factory they belong to.
For Taiwan Glass we designed the 3,300 m² Donghai office building in Lianyungang, the plant’s office building and showcase: a 150-metre glass box on a stone podium, with triple-layer glass modules up to 5.4 m tall and clip-on aluminium louvres that shade it and change its look. Half the building is offices, meeting rooms, training and product display, and half is kitchens and dining rooms for guests and staff. It won a Merit Award at the 2015 Cross-Strait Architectural Design Awards.
At T-HAM, the offices, R&D, quality control and canteens face the street behind a full-height glass façade. At Quest, a three-storey, 1,600 m² office building holds meeting rooms and sales spaces, with a reception and dining floor and a roof terrace on top. We also designed the office of the Shihlien New Energy battery plant, and the head office of Shenzhen Wenhua Architectural Construction on the 31st floor of a tower overlooking Shenzhen’s Central Park, including its furniture.
Good staff facilities help a factory recruit and keep people. The Shan Tea complex in Yunnan includes a ceremonial hall and canteen, dormitories and a reception centre with guest rooms. At T-HAM’s processing plant we added a diner and gift shop for visitors, and at its new slaughterhouse we designed a new office, lobby, meeting rooms, a public lecture hall and staff changing rooms. At Shihlien, the partners designed and managed dormitories and VIP dining and hosting pavilions.
Many of our industrial clients also need a public face. For T-HAM’s retail brand ROU, we designed a butchery and restaurant in Taipei that won a Red Dot, an iF Design Award and Commercial Interior of the Year at the INSIDE World Festival of Interiors, followed by ROU × James Sharman at the Taipei Marriott. For Taiwan Glass, we designed a glass showroom and a vacuum glass pavilion in the garden of its Qingdao plant. On the showroom we were the single point of contact for the architecture, interiors and custom furniture, coordinated the local design institute and the contractor, and supervised construction. For Shan Tea, we designed a concept store and an R&D lab in Guangzhou.
The partners have also managed the delivery of major buildings designed by others. On the Building on the Water, Shihlien Chemical’s headquarters designed by Pritzker Prize winner Álvaro Siza and Carlos Castanheira, Richard and Stephen Wang jointly project-managed the building as Shihlien’s in-house architectural design managers (2010–2014), before founding WZWX. It is one of China’s earliest large cast-in-situ white fair-faced concrete buildings, and ArchDaily’s Office Building of the Year in 2015. As Shihlien’s in-house managers, the partners also delivered the Taiwan Glass Qingdao Office, designed by E-15, and the Shihlien Pavilion, designed by a Taiwanese architect. They coordinated the designs, worked with the local design institute to produce the drawings and pass local assessments, chose the contractors and supervised construction.
From 2010 to 2014, Richard and Stephen Wang worked on the client side, as the in-house architectural design managers of Shihlien Chemical in Huai’an. They know what an owner needs from an architect, because they have been the owner. More about the practice.
Long-term clients
Yes. At T-HAM, Quest and the Shihlien New Energy battery plant, we designed the offices with the production buildings, so they share one site plan, one entrance sequence and one design language.
Yes. Interiors are part of almost every project we do, and we designed the furniture for ROU and the Shenzhen Wenhua Architectural Construction office.
Yes. As Shihlien Chemical’s in-house architectural design managers (2010–2014), before founding WZWX, Richard and Stephen Wang jointly project-managed the Building on the Water, designed by Pritzker Prize winner Álvaro Siza and Carlos Castanheira.
Planning a headquarters, staff facilities or a showroom? Tell us about the site and what the building needs to do, and we will reply with how we would approach it.