The jurors also expressed their admiration for the building’s “softening-edge component,” the extensive use of wood and joinery that frame many of its interiors.
Bruce Damonte The jurors also expressed their admiration for the building’s “softening-edge component,” the extensive use of wood and joinery that frame many of its interiors.

Category: Work
Award
For the jury, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)’s new U.S. consulate in Guangzhou, China, sends an important message: “The consulate building is representative of a quality that we want to continue to see in foreign projects, where our soft culture can be embraced,” juror Sheila Kennedy said.

The 150,000-square-foot building’s unfussy massing and frank expression lent it a degree of candor and simplicity that propelled it to the top of the heap. Where so many diplomatic buildings abroad seem to deploy heavy-handed rhetoric, SOM’s shoots for understatement, using local materials and brightly lit façades at either end of the tube-shaped main structure to give it a sense of warmth and welcome. The jurors also expressed their admiration for the building’s “softening-edge component,” the extensive use of wood and joinery that frame many of its interiors and that are visible here and there behind glass plates on the exterior.

Occupying a 7.5-acre lot in the city’s Pearl River New Town district, the project is as important for the extensive landscaping that surrounds it as for the building itself. Though the compound is necessarily separated from the surrounding streets by screening facilities—one of the rigors of the security-heavy brief—the gardens and paved areas are decidedly public in character, the pathways lined in a locally quarried stone that also clads the body of the consulate. Even the perimeter buildings, through which visitors must pass to enter the consulate area, are given a sensitive, urban character, each topped with a long green roof and a broad marquee that extends toward the sidewalk.

Kennedy praised the project further as an “idea-driven” workplace, one that brings “ideas about the public nature of the workplace into the site.” The consulate, she concluded, is an office with “soul.”

See all of the winners of ARCHITECT's 2013 Annual Design Review here.

For more projects by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, please visit ARCHITECT's Project Gallery.

SOM's U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China.
Bruce Damonte SOM's U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China.
The consulate building is representative of a quality that we want to continue to see in foreign projects, where our soft culture can be embraced,” juror Sheila Kennedy said.
Bruce Damonte The consulate building is representative of a quality that we want to continue to see in foreign projects, where our soft culture can be embraced,” juror Sheila Kennedy said.
The project is as important for the extensive landscaping that surrounds it as for the building itself.
Bruce Damonte The project is as important for the extensive landscaping that surrounds it as for the building itself.
The gardens and paved areas are decidedly public in character.
Bruce Damonte The gardens and paved areas are decidedly public in character.
Pathways are lined in a locally quarried stone that also clads the body of the consulate.
Bruce Damonte Pathways are lined in a locally quarried stone that also clads the body of the consulate.
A locally quarried stone clads the consulate exterior.
Bruce Damonte A locally quarried stone clads the consulate exterior.
Site plan.
Courtesy SOM Site plan.
Typical section.
Courtesy SOM Typical section.
The 150,000-square-foot building’s unfussy massing and frank expression lent it a degree of candor and simplicity that propelled it to the top of the heap.
Bruce Damonte The 150,000-square-foot building’s unfussy massing and frank expression lent it a degree of candor and simplicity that propelled it to the top of the heap.
At ground level, wood cladding softens the building's exterior.
Bruce Damonte At ground level, wood cladding softens the building's exterior.
Wood and joinery moments are visible through punches in the exterior.
Bruce Damonte Wood and joinery moments are visible through punches in the exterior.
The 150,000-square-foot building occupies a 7.5-acre lot.
Bruce Damonte The 150,000-square-foot building occupies a 7.5-acre lot.

Project Credits Project  United States Consulate General, Guangzhou, China
Client  U.S. Department of State
Architect  Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), San Francisco—Craig Hartman, FAIA (design partner); Gene Schnair, FAIA (managing partner); Keith Boswell, FAIA (technical director ); Eric Keune, AIA, Kye Archuleta, AIA (senior designers); Kevin Krage, AIA (project manager); David Diamond, AIA (senior technical designer); John Kuchen, Assoc. AIA, Sandy Greig, AIA (technical designers); Tamara Dinsmore, AIA (senior interior designer); Chanda Capelli, Mary Liboro (interior designers); Lonny Israel (graphic designer); Carlos Gonzalez (security officer)
Chinese Architect and Engineering Firm  Guangzhou Design Institute (GZDI)
Structural, Civil, and M/E/P Engineer, and Specifications  Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Chicago
Landscape Architect  Tom Leader Studio
Geotechnical Consultant  Schnabel Engineering
Fire/Life Safety  Rolf Jensen & Associates
IT/Telecommunications  WSP—Flack + Kurtz
Blast Consultant  Weidlinger Associates
Food Service  Cini Little International
Vertical Transportation  Edgett Williams Consulting Group
Lighting  Claude R. Engle Lighting Consultants
Site Lighting  Archiluce International
Cost Estimation  Project Cost Government Service
Acoustics  Cerami & Associates
Audiovisual  Shen Milsom Wilke
Systems Furniture Integration  Maryland Office Interiors
General Contractors  BL Harbert International, China Huashi Enterprises Co.
Photographer  Bruce Damonte Photography
Size  150,000 square feet
Cost  Confidential