We all know that buildings don't always turn out like the renderings. Last-minute changes and real-life materials can all cause discrepancies between the vision and reality of a project. In our weekly Flash Forward Friday feature, we take a look at how different projects stack up.

The completed Shenzhen Stock Exchange, image by Flickr user Jay Sterling Austin via Creative Commons

For developers wanting their project to have a strong street presence, one of the most important tools at the disposal of their appointed architects is the podium. These multi-level elongated bases anchor the tower to the public realm and can hold a diversity of uses. The tower-on-podium typology has been adopted around the world, but it's this popular design convention that OMA sought to avoid when they won a design competition in 2006 to create an audacious complex for the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

An earlier rendering of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, image via OMA

Completed in 2013, the 245-metre-tall skyscraper lifts the podium from its traditional comfort zone, the ground, and places it several storeys higher. The 'skirt' was conceived as a physical manifestation of the stock market, its floating plinth representing the "speculative euphoria that drives the market," says OMA. This three-storey cantilevered platform — home to the listing hall and all stock exchange departments — hovers 36 metres above the ground to create a sheltered public plaza and a dynamic landscaped roof. The rectangular extrusion, masked in a three-dimensional collage of steel transfer trusses, crops and frames views of the city, and at night, becomes a glowing hub of finance.

Final rendering of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, image via OMA

Final renderings of the 46-storey tower presented some physical changes to the suspended podium and base from the earlier design. The diamond articulation skinning the base and raised podium was swapped with a more restrained series of diagonal braces. Under this revision, the grid fenestration of the tower would extend straight to the ground, behind the supports of the base. The new rendering also showed the building in a much lighter hue, though perhaps only to illustrate the finer details of the design.

Final rendering of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, image via OMA