Hong Kong Bank

Project name: Hong Kong Bank Architect: Norman Foster Location:Hong Kong, China

to create the best bank building in the world

Site Analysis
The climate of Hong Kong is a monsooninfluenced humid subtropical climate. warm and humid spring, hot and rainy summer, pleasant and sunny autumn, cool and dry winter.

Foster responded to a site which has impressive views of Hong Kong Harbor to the north and Victoria Peak to the south, by creating a forty-sevenstory rectangular prism with its long sides oriented to the veiws while mechanical and service functions close off the short east and

 Lit by the sun and cooled by seawater its complex facade is not just for looks, as the diamond-shaped panels let in air for cooling and vent it as it warms up and rises. without noting it would have been the worlds largest passively cooled building.

Park

Between Hong Kong Bank & Harbor

The site plan and north-south section show the swath of open space that extends from the Star Ferry in Hong Kongs Harbor to the Hong Kong Bank

Public Plaza

At ground floor level the public plaza which passes beneath the tower is interrupted by just eight steel masts that carry the entire weight of the superstructure down to bedrock, and transfer wind loading to the foundation.

Interior Atrium Space

the uninterrupted public passage under the building precludes a sense of grand processional entrance. The two angled escalators (so positioned at the directive of the Chinese feng-shui, or environmental diviner, as are a number of other elements in the building) that lead up through the curved belly into the banking hall do provide a surrealistic effect, but do not make up for the paucity of the generalized plaza experience.

Entrance

Plans
masts Service cores Offices area Atrium

The mast structure allowed another radical move, pushing the service cores to the perimeter so as to create deep-plan floors around a ten-storey atrium

The floor plans show how the building step back as it rises.

Vertical program

Secondary structure

Floor planes

Volume box

Primary structure

Diagrams
In circulation, functional zones correspond to these five structural ones
The truss levels are double height and have specialized common functions (reception,dining..) and the high-speed elevators, locate at the west side of the building, are programmed to stop at them From these floors, vertical circulation is via escalators, to provide a more sociable way of moving through the zones than by elevator.

Each zone accommodates a single bank function or several related ones, and the concept is that the zones are social villages subsets of the bank as a whole, with which the employees identify.

Vertical Movement/ Circulation

Vertical Organization/ Solid&Void

in-betweenPrograms

volume Programs
chairmans apartment

Reception, central conference, boardroom, terrace

Group head office departments

Executive offices, group marketing Reception, officers dinning. terrace

EDP and affiliated departments

Reception, staff amenities, terrace

import/export personnel group head office training area management

Credit department, terrace Hong Kong and area management departments Main banking hall

Double-height levels contain reception areas, fire refuge terraces, and specialized functions such as dining recreation, conference room.

Structure
The structure of the building is its most striking aspect, visually and functinally. Both for reasons of flexible office planning and to allow clear views of the harbor from all points, the floors are virtually column-free. Secondary Structure

At five intermediate levels, suspension trusses suspend the weight of the floors in the zone below.

Primary Structure

Eight mast towers, each composed of four tubular steel columns connected by hauched beams to act as Vierendeel trusses, rise on either side of the building,

the front and back pairs located outside the building envelope.

Terrace

At the central elevator core, Foster has pulled the floor away from the elevator shafts, allowing a view of them rising through the building.

Outside each double-height space is terrace used not only for recreation bu also as refuge areas in case of fir

The dramatization of movement continues in the double-story levels, where switch-back escalators, along with trusses and hangers, sweep through the space, and where glass elevator shafts and escalator undercarriages reveal the motion of machinery.

Modules

Speed, quality and compactness: these were the three main reasons for the decision to package the airhandling plant and lavatories into container-size modules.

There are 139 modules stacked in towers on the east and west sides of the building. They are linked together by risers which were also prefabricated in two and three-storey high steel frames.

Sun scoop Light the Atrium

sunscoop--a huge periscope projec sunlight onto the banking halls through the glazed underbelly to the pu plaza beneath the building. It has main components: a bank of flat mirrors attac to the south side of the buildin level 12 and a curved canopy of con mirrors suspended over the atri

The mechanism
The mirrors move in one plane only, adjusting to the height of the sun above the horizon but not to its east/west position. This means that the light falling inside the building moves across the atrium space during the day, just as it would if shining directly through a skylight. The mechanism is basically the same as that for motorized external louvers, except that the motors are controlled by a computer programmed to know precisely how high the sun will be on every day of the year.

Lit by the sun and cooled by seawater, it ensures prosperity for eternity with its view of the harbour. Indeed, its hard to imagine how this Englishmans building could have been any more Chinese or more green.

A corporate headquarters in the shape of a bulbous (and many say erotic) rocket ship, its one of Londons most distinctive landmarks. But its complex facade is not just for looks, as the diamond-shaped panels let in air for cooling and vent it as it warms up and rises. without noting it would have been the worlds largest passively cooled building.