Developer tops off green building in BGC
When Daiichi Properties broke ground for The Finance Centre in Bonifacio Global City in June of 2014, it promised to build a world-class office building that will have modern yet sustainable and environment-friendly features.
Three years later, the developer delivers by giving the local real estate industry one of the best office devel- opments today with the topping-off rites for the 42-storey The Finance Centre last Feb. 27. The building will be completed in the second quarter of 2018.
The Finance Centre was designed by world-renowned architectural firm Gensler, which also designed the headquarters of Facebook, Airbnb, and Uniqlo.
Located at the corner of 26th and 9th Avenues, The Finance Centre features open spaces that aim to inspire creativity and collaboration—an expansive 1,700-sqm plaza with water features, as well as a sky garden above its retail podium.
The building also has open, column-free floor layouts that give tenants the freedom to create their own optimal work environments based on the needs of their business.
“We made a promise at the start of the development that we will build a world-class building that the local real estate industry can be proud of,” said Charmaine Uy, SVP at Daiichi. “To deliver on that promise, we saw to it that we strictly followed the design specifications of our partner Gensler as well as the directions of our structural engineers.”
For this project, the developer retained the services of New York-based Thornton Tomasetti and Makati-based Sy^2 for structural engineering, using performance-based design principles.
Daiichi’s structural evaluation efforts include performance-based tests that cover not only seismic resilience but also structural resilience to wind, which is particularly critical to highrise buildings in a country that is visited by multiple typhoons a year.
“Our buildings are designed to be naturally resistant to both earthquakes and strong typhoons,” added Uy. Testament to the building’s excellence, even before its completion, The Finance Centre already won the Five-Star Best Office Development given by the Asia Pacific Property Awards in 2016—the third award that Daiichi Properties got for its office developments.
The building is also LEED precertified Gold, one of the few buildings in the country to have such distinction.