Wangjing SOHO

Wangjing SOHO is a group of three curving skyscrapers in the Wangjing area of Beijing, China, between the city centre and the capital's airport. The towers are about 200, 127 and 118 metres tall. They hold offices and shops. The complex opened on 20 September 2014.

The architect was Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born designer famous for flowing shapes. The towers' curved walls have been compared to dancing Chinese fans. The developer's chairman said the design is meant to suggest a koi, a fish that is a Chinese symbol of wealth, luck, health and happiness. The tallest of the three is the seventh-tallest building in the world designed by a woman.

How did the design change?

Originally the plan was two towers, but because of worries about height it was redesigned as three lower towers. The towers are curved and uneven, and seen from the air they look like curved sails swimming across the land, in the words of a German magazine. Their shiny metal skin ties the three shapes together, so that each seems to dance around the others.

A tricky metal skin

The walls curve in two directions at once, which is very hard to make out of flat metal sheets. Engineers wrote software that studied the curves and then produced flat or singly-curved panels that could be made at a reasonable cost. The design also became a famous copying case: a similar project in Chongqing appeared, and Zaha Hadid's office said it might have obtained digital details of the original.

On the globe

The model shows three curved towers that shrink and slide as they rise. Look for the pebble-shaped plans.