Project: SINOVAC Life City
Location: Beijing, China
Client: Beijing Zhongwei Yidao Biotechnology Co., Ltd
Design and Project Architect: Aedas
Gross Floor Area: 120,000 sq m
Completion Year: 2025
Design Directors: Dr. Andy Wen, Global Design Principal, Ken Wai, Global Design Principal and Zihuan Lin, Executive Director
Photography: Terrence Zhang
Designed by Aedas Global Design Principals Dr. Andy Wen and Ken Wai and Executive Director Zihuan Lin, the SINOVAC Life City redefines the modern industrial park by integrating intelligent systems, human-centric spaces, and sustainable green principles. The project is designed to establish a new benchmark for a smart, humane, and adaptive industrial environment.
Adjacent to the Life Science Park, the project enjoys exceptional connectivity, with immediate access to the expressways and metro station.
The design draws inspiration from the ‘Tree of Life’, symbolically echoing the company’s mission. On the south side, the research and office building represents the ‘SINOVAC Roots’, while the production facilities to the north form the flourishing ‘SINOVAC Crown’. A series of leaf-shaped structures are linked by the ‘SINOVAC Trunk’, which houses corporate showcase spaces and public amenities. Elevated corridors span across the planned roadway, seamlessly connecting the two halves of the campus to balance efficient pedestrian and logistics flows. These elements create an organically evolving industrial ecosystem – dynamic, interconnected, and enduring.
The design relocates storage and unloading underground, providing expansive ground-level space to create a public-facing urban interface while delivering an integrated vertical logistics system.
The highly efficient underground logistics system completely liberates the ground level from traditional truck traffic. All freight vehicles are swiftly directed underground upon entry, enabling a fully realised and uncompromised separation of pedestrian and vehicular flows at grade. It provides a safe, tranquil, and verdant campus environment.
The design embraces low energy consumption and sustainable principles, adopting outward-sloping façades effectively to reduce direct solar exposure during summer. The lower sun angles allows light to enter through reflective fins that diffuse sunlight indoors – significantly improving natural daylight and reducing heating demand. The roof features a perforated aluminum panel system, creating a cooling effect in summer that the white reflective surface deflects solar radiation.
‘The design reshapes the future industrial spaces, integrating efficiency and experience, and emphasising sustainability to the environment.’ Andy, Ken, and Zihuan share.
