Glumac's pioneering net-zero Shanghai office paves the way to greener buildings in China

China is the world's second largest market for LEED green building activity, but the sustainable architecture movement is still limited by local developers' preference for fast and cheap construction.

However the newly minted net-zero Glumac Shanghai office could change that mentality in a big way. Developed by Gensler in collaboration with Shimizu, GIGA, and Glumac over the course of a year, the Shanghai office boasts a stunning array of high-tech sustainable features and is China's first LEED v4 Platinum certified building. It's also designed to become the first building to achieve Living Building Challenge certification in Asia. Click through to learn how one of Shanghai's healthiest offices is paving the way to a greener future in China.

The 6,000-square-foot project’s LEED v4 Platinum and projected full-petal LBC certifications are impressive, but the arguably more outstanding accomplishment is how the cross-cultural and geographic team managed to meet those high green standards. Not only is green implementation notoriously difficult for commercial buildings, but it can be harder still to gain approval from Chinese landlords who look at new sustainable systems like solar panels and rainwater recycling as more trouble than they’re worth. Luckily, the team found a unique location—a historic but centrally located site owned by the Chinese military—that also gave them the flexibility to design all mechanical systems and rooms from the ground up.

Another major difficulty was finding low-carbon and regionally sourced materials that were free of the toxins on the LBC-banned list. The Shanghai-based green materials consultant GIGA rose to the challenge with a surprising diversity of material choices that helped Gensler recreate the look and feel of Glumac’s other offices. The use of wood, however, was limited because formaldehyde is used in most of the veneer in China. In its place, the team installed rice board and strawboard—the strawboard pillars assembled by Shimizu were left unpainted to show off the design and fulfill the certifications’ green education component.