Shanghai West Bund Convention Center | SOM - Skidmore Owings & Merrill

Designed through a multi-objective optimization workflow, the West Bund Convention Center rises as a compact, high-performance landmark—uniting major exhibition spaces with terraces and public areas overlooking the Huangpu River.

A Riverfront Venue for Innovation

Positioned along the Huangpu River in Shanghai’s West Bund, the convention center contributes to a rapidly evolving district dedicated to culture, technology, and research. Designed through an AI-assisted workflow, the building aligns with its context in the West Bund AI Valley—an emerging hub for China’s artificial intelligence sector. Its vertical massing strategy consolidates program on a compact footprint while preserving the ground plane for public space. Landscaped terraces and river-facing promenades extend the district’s five-kilometer green corridor, strengthening connections between the waterfront and nearby cultural institutions.

In July 2025, it hosted the World Artificial Intelligence Conference on its ground floor—an event well suited to a venue shaped by the same computational tools celebrated across the district. Built with low-carbon materials and energy-efficient systems, the project reinforces West Bund’s identity as a hub of innovation.

Advancing Design Through AI-Assisted Optimization

The project is a benchmark in SOM’s ongoing exploration of computational design. An AI-assisted, multi-objective optimization workflow guided the building’s diamond-inspired geometry, balancing parameters that typically conflict—daylight and shading, floor area and envelope inclination, structural efficiency and view orientation. The design team defined spatial boundaries, programmatic requirements, curtain wall conditions, and performance objectives. Algorithms then generated and evaluated hundreds of models, each scored against criteria established by the architects and engineers.

This process accelerated early-stage research and enabled a level of precision difficult to achieve manually. It also expanded the design space, revealing configurations that met the project’s technical and experiential goals. Human judgment remained fundamental: designers selected and refined the preferred iteration based on contextual fit, clarity, and elegance. The workflow reduced structural steel quantities, improved energy performance, and rationalized the complex geometry into a facade composed predominantly of standard-sized glass panels.

A Vertical Convention Model

Inside, the project introduces a new model for compact event venues in Shanghai. A tall atrium anchors the primary entrance, where a sequence of escalators brings visitors to two large, column-free halls of 6,000 and 4,000 square meters. Among the largest spaces of their kind along the waterfront, these halls accommodate international conferences, expos, and community programming. Their vertical placement maximizes the site’s limited footprint while improving circulation and reinforcing intuitive wayfinding.

Perimeter public spaces, meeting rooms, and gathering areas receive abundant natural light and frame views of the river. Landscaped terraces on the upper levels offer outdoor rooms that expand the building’s event capabilities and extend the district’s broader open-space network.

Photography: Dave Burk © SOM