3TREES put into use its current iconic headquarters office building complex shaped like three leaves in early July 2010, bidding bye to its old factory-based office building where its hundreds of head office employees had worked for seven years, and marking a new chapter in the history of 3TREES.

It is little known that there was a story full of twists and turns behind this modern office building which has come to represent the green and high-tech image of 3TREES. In 2006, the project of the new office complex was put on the agenda with a budget almost equal to 3TREES’s whole-year revenue at that time, and it was resolutely pushed by Chairman Hong Jie despite opposition from almost everyone. He saw, in his mind’s eye, erected on the project site chosen by him, which was surrounded by a river and wooded with litchi trees, an iconic building complex which would embody an exciting future for his company, one with over 1,000 employees and a brand value of tens or even hundreds of billions. To make the building complex of “unity of man and nature” envisioned by him a reality, he turned to a good number of leading domestic and overseas design firms.

The design underwent dozens of drafts and evolved from a cluster of square buildings to three separate buildings, but there was always something missing in terms of finding the best balance between aesthetics and utility, and in the course of time the design papers accumulated on the desktop of Hong Jie had rose to dozens of centimeters thick. How would the building complex be like, so that it would accommodate the entire green development dream of 3TREES? Hong Jie pondered on this question over and over, and decided that even the final design was still unable to deliver what he had expected of the project, and he raced to the project site to call a halt. However, the design firm, which arrived at what they believed was the best design after a lot of efforts, refused to make further change to it. But Hong Jie would not give up, and he personally took the design papers to Huang Chunfeng, chief designer at Fujian Provincial Institute of Architectural Design and Research. Eventually, he won over Huang with his perseverance, sincerity and forward-looking architectural design ideas. Huang agreed to personally take charge of the design of the office building complex, and brought the design work to fruition after one year. And it took two more years for the building complex to be constructed and decorated.

It merits a special mention that the design located the headquarters office building at a site where there were three old litchi trees which would be cut down, but Hong Jie ordered, with no hesitation, the relocation of the office building to preserve the trees. “How precious these trees are, having grown over one hundred years!”, he said. “If we cut down them, we will be in no position to talk about the unity of man and nature. The design must be changed to preserve the trees!” Eventually, the office building gave way to the trees and was relocated at the northwestern corner of the park. The three litchi trees thus preserved by Hong Jie have become a unique attraction at the entrance to the office building and greeted guests from all over the world as well as 3TREES employees.

The “three-leaf” building complex, now comprising an office center, a R&D center and a business school and continuing to embody 3TREES’s corporate philosophy and vision, has become one of the local architectural attractions and landmarks.