Dongguan, China
Designated as a city in 1985 by the Chinese government under Deng Xiaoping, Dongguan is the smallest of the three major manufacturing centers of the special Pearl River Delta economic zone: the others are Shenzhen and Guangzhou, and Hong Kong, across the southern border. With a population of 8.34 million – the same as New York City – Dongguan is, however, a city of 75 percent migrant workers from rural China, who are employed principally at Manny factories. Since the early 2000s, it has been one of China’s fastest-growing cities.
The 88-story office building makes Dongguan International Trade Center 1 the dominant structure of a mixed-used development in the heart of downtown Dongguan. The master plan includes a group of five separate towers that provides office, residential and hotel functions. A major portion of the site is covered with a six-level mall of mixed commercial busses and multiple landscaped levels of circulation. A club, an observation deck, and a symbolic lantern will crown the tower. The complex is scheduled to be completed in 2020.