6 projects raising the bar for workplaces across Asia

For a technology meant to render the traditional office obsolete, AI is doing a pretty good job of making the best commercial buildings more desirable than they have been in years. Across Asia, occupiers are reassessing what space is for, how efficiently it runs, and whether it still fits a workforce being redefined by automation. That is sharpening demand for buildings with better digital infrastructure, stronger operational visibility, and layouts that can adapt as needs change.

“Commercial real estate is entering a period of accelerated recalibration,” says Christine Li, head of research for Asia Pacific at Knight Frank, as organisations contend with “persistent uncertainty, shifting work styles, evolving portfolio strategies, and rising expectations for workplace performance.” CBRE’s recently released 2026 Asia Pacific Investor Intentions Survey notes that net buying intentions rose to 17% in 2026, up from 13% a year earlier, while offices became the most favoured asset class for the first time in six years.

That appetite, however, is highly selective. Hybrid work has changed demand patterns, but it has also raised expectations. Companies still want offices, mixed-use schemes, and commercial environments that support culture and productivity while offering greater flexibility and better technology. In Singapore, Tokyo, and Australia, Li notes, occupiers are renewing early or pre-committing to secure scarce, high-quality space. India’s GCC-led expansion is intensifying demand for tech-ready campuses with large, contiguous floorplates, while in mainland China, oversupply and rental corrections are enabling upgrades into higher-quality, more digitally advanced buildings.

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What those buildings increasingly share is the way they perform behind the scenes. Smart systems and automation allow owners to monitor energy, air quality, maintenance, and occupancy in real time. AI-led tools give landlords a clearer view of asset performance and help tenants understand how space is being used. IoT sensors, cloud controls, and stronger digital infrastructure are becoming standard in top-tier buildings, supporting everything from access and security to workplace apps and day-to-day services.

Such sophistication does not come cheap. JLL reports that global office fit-out costs climbed by up to 6% over the past year, driven in part by tougher technology requirements. The same push for tighter control, better monitoring, and clearer performance data is also shaping the sustainability agenda, with those systems now central to carbon reduction and operational efficiency. JLL says retrofit rates in Asia Pacific need to increase nearly fivefold to align with 2050 climate goals, while 61% of investors now see retrofits as their main strategy for managing obsolescence risk. Its research also finds that 78% of future demand from top office occupiers is tied to carbon reduction targets.

Companies want offices, mixed-use schemes, and commercial environments that support culture and productivity while offering greater flexibility and better technology

For landlords, that raises the threshold of what counts as a competitive asset. Ada Choi, head of research for Asia Pacific at CBRE, says occupiers are gravitating towards “high quality, amenity-rich buildings” as shrinking new supply in developed markets and rising fit-out costs put pressure on owners to invest in better, more tech-enabled, and more sustainable assets. CBRE’s 2026 outlook supports that picture: Regional Grade A office supply is forecast to peak at 61.3 million square feet this year, with more than three-quarters concentrated in India and mainland China, while developed markets remain relatively constrained.

On the ground, that means stronger digital connectivity, tighter operational controls, and layouts that can flex with changing work patterns without forcing tenants into repeated, costly overhauls. It also means paying closer attention to the wider environment around the workspace: easier access, smoother security, cleaner air, better services, and hospitality-style amenities that make a building more useful throughout the day. That helps explain why “flight to quality” still rings true, but with a more demanding meaning than before. It now rests, in Choi’s words, on “a combination of prime location, digital capability, and operational performance.”

The buildings setting the pace pair address and access with stronger systems behind the scenes. They give occupiers better data, lower waste, smoother operations, and a more convincing daily experience. In a market with little patience for underperforming stock, that mix is the clearest sign of which developments are likely to hold their edge. The award-winning projects below show how that standard is being set.

IOI Central Boulevard Towers | Singapore

In Marina Bay, where office towers usually compete on prestige and address, one campus makes its case through space. IOI Central Boulevard Towers spans 1.29 million square feet of office space, a compact stretch of shops and cafés, and corridors directly linked to the Downtown MRT below. Overhead, sky bridges connect to neighbouring towers, while a district cooling system runs quietly beneath, reducing the building’s energy draw throughout the day. Much of the engineering is visible in the details: double-glazed glass, low-carbon concrete, lifts and escalators tuned for efficiency, all backed by Green Mark Platinum and WiredScore Platinum credentials. The same thinking extends seven floors up, where a broad green deck makes room for a jogging track and meeting pods set among dense planting. That combination of performance and breathing room gives the scheme its appeal. It provides office space, but also connects naturally to the way people move through the district.

LIMA Tower One | Batangas, Philippines

The Philippine office market has long centred on Metro Manila. In Batangas, this tower shows why occupiers are starting to look further south. Set within a 70-hectare business estate, LIMA Tower One is aimed at IT and business process tenants and already has major occupiers in place. The building is efficient by design, with integrated controls, operable windows, low-E glass, rooftop solar panels, rainwater collection, and advanced air filtration. But its real strength lies in the district around it. Employees can move through the estate using the Red Pass access system and an all-electric shuttle network, with retail, a hotel, sports facilities, dormitory beds, and landscaped public space nearby. That wider setting gives the tower its commercial logic, offering employers a workable daily environment in a region gaining weight in the office market.

Luminary Tower | Jakarta, Indonesia

In a crowded capital, bringing work, hospitality, and public life into one address is as much a practical move as a commercial one. Rising over Jakarta’s Thamrin corridor, Luminary Tower stacks offices, hotels, serviced suites, food and beverage outlets, a ballroom, and an observatory into a single commercial programme. Terracotta fins line the podium, casting angled shadows across the storefronts and keeping the ground floor open to passersby. The gesture is useful and legible, giving the building’s base a sense of welcome rather than closure. Most cars are routed to the edge or sent underground, leaving the ground level to people and plants. The Green Plaza stretches out with stepped gardens and water features, a rare patch of openness in the city’s core. There is some showmanship in the observatory and in the way the programme is stacked, but the mix of uses works. Office, hotel, and public spaces support one another, drawing activity through the site for more of the day. At street level, the project feels coherent.

Midea Global Innovation Park | Shanghai, China

On Shanghai’s western edge, this R&D campus is being planned on a vast scale, with 200,000 square metres of office and research space envisioned by J&A Design to house up to 10,000 people. Retail, a hotel, a gym, and a swimming pool round out the wider programme, giving the campus the kind of daily infrastructure now expected in large innovation environments competing for talent. The design team describes the concept as a science and technology park above a forest. In practice, that takes shape through atriums, broad stairways, and open internal vistas that break down the scale of the complex and bring more daylight and movement into the workplace. Ecological references run through the interiors, giving the campus a lighter, less rigid feel. For a project aimed at high-end R&D staff, that matters. The design is trying to support both the work and the people doing it.

Parc Hanoi | Vietnam

Parc Hanoi makes its case in Hanoi’s premium office market with a practical proposition: It can handle more complex occupier needs. Inside, the lobby opens onto column-free floors. Knock-out slabs and reinforced zones are set aside for server rooms or storage, details that rarely make the brochure but matter to those who need them. For occupiers with technical requirements, those details affect how easily the building can respond to shifting demands. Around this practical core, the building points to where Hanoi’s premium market is headed. LEED Gold and WELL Platinum credentials are part of the pitch, signalling a shift in what counts as top-tier. Shared terraces look out over the city’s low-rise sprawl. Air quality monitors blink quietly above the reception desk. Landscaped edges soften the approach from the street, while a walkway links the lobby to the neighbouring park, keeping the building open to its surroundings. The effect is understated but intentional. In a market where expectations at the top are rising, that restraint may matter more than spectacle.

Yokohama Symphostage | Japan

Built where two pedestrian routes meet in Minato Mirai, Yokohama Symphostage is organised around movement at ground level. Layered plazas and semi-outdoor gathering spaces reconnect a stretch of the district that had previously been fragmented. Public facilities keep the area active through the working week and during city events. Wind and sunlight simulations shaped the open spaces, while pedestrian-flow models informed the layout. Heat-load calculations guided the design of the double-skin curtain walls, solar fins, and cooling systems. Automated jalousie windows and blinds respond to shifting light and temperature, fine-tuning the interior climate. The office space is divided between two buildings: one reserved for headquarters, the other open to tenants leasing by the floor or subdividing as needed. The project carries strong environmental credentials: BELS 5-Star, ZEB Ready, CASBEE Yokohama S-rank. What matters more is the way movement, climate, and public life have been treated as part of the commercial brief from the outset.

The original version of this article appeared in PropertyGuru Property Report Magazine Issue No. 196 on Issuu and Magzter. Write to our editors at [email protected].