hong kong bank

Architecture 489Chung Yang

Structure Innovations:Hong Kong Bank

Hong Kong BankNorman Foster

The new Hong Kong Bank building is theheadquarters for the bank’s internationaland Hong Kong operations, and serves asa local branch as well. It stands on a primepiece of property in Central Hong Kong,overlooking to its North Statue Square andthe star ferry terminal, but stable functionswhich likely to retain the new building’s viewof the harbor in perpetuity.

Exterior Perspective

51



The Hong Kong Bank rises 590 feet aboveDes Voeux Road on its north side-47 floorsabove ground, four below- and has a grossarea of over one million square feet, withnet floor areas of up to 29,000 square feets.

The new headquarters for Hong Kong Bank,program called for a banking hall, vaults,offices for various administrative depart-ments, a computer center, dining and con-ference facilities, executive offices, and anapartment for the bank chairman. Thebuilding contains 1,067,467 gross and 757,757net-to-gross ratio of 1:1.4(1:1.2 on largestfloor).

Interior Atrium Space

52



At ground floor level the public plaza whichpasses beneath the tower is interrupted byjust eight steel masts that carry the entireweight of the superstructure down to bed-rock, and transfer windloading to the foun-dation.

Furthermore, the uninterrupted public pas-sage under the building precludes a senseof grand processional entrance. The twoangled escalators (so positioned at the di-rective of the Chinese fung-shui, or envi-ronmental diviner, as are a number of otherelements in the building) that lead upthrough the curved belly into the bankinghall do provide an excitingly surrealistic ef-fect, but do not make up for the paucity ofthe generalized plaza experience, paltry incomparison to associations with grand bankentrances and to the very expectationsaroused by this proud and dramatic glassand aluminum structure.

Public Plaza

53



The site plan and north-south section showthe swath of open space that extends fromthe Star Ferry in Hong Kong’s Harbar to theHong Kong Bank. The section also indicatesthe location of the seawater tunnel andsunscoop, and the height of the buildingrelative to surrounding structures.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Relationship to the Harbor

54



The floor plans show how the building stepback as it rises. The plaza is largely openexcept for passenger elevators and me-chanical riseron the east side. Floors threethrough twelve have an atrium in theircentral bay. Floors thirteen throughtwenty-nine fill the entire three-bay, 180-foot width. From the thirtieth through thethirty-sixth floors, the building step back totwo bays and above the thirty-seventhfloor, used mainly for executive functions,the building is only one bay wide.

Plans

55



The east-west section reveals the steppingback of the floors along the building’s eastside to meet zoning requirements. Despitethese setbacks, the stacks of service mod-ules along the east side of the building risevertically, making the buildinglook rectilin-ear when viewed from the north or like aseries of thin, “mechanistic” slices whenviewed from the east.

Elevations & Section

56



In circulation, functional zones corre-spond to these five structural ones: Thetruss levels are double height and havespecialized common functions, and thehighspeed elevators, locate at the westside of the building, are programmed tostop at them. From these floors, verticalcirculation is via escalators, to providea more sociable way of moving throughthe zones than by elevator. Each zoneaccommodates a single bank functionor several realated ones, and the con-cept is that the zones are “social vil-lages’” subsets of the bank as a whole,with which the employees identify.

Diagrams

Vertical Movement/Circulation

Vertical Organization/Solid&Void

57



Primary Structure

Volume boxFloor plane

Vertical program

Secondary Structure

Explored axonometric

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

58



Programs

To break down the anonymity of thebuilding, Forster’s first principle was todivide the 47-story structure into fiveabove-ground zones, each served bya double-height floor. Apart from theescalators leading directly from plaza tobanking hall, a total of 23 express eleva-tors deliver staff and clients to thedouble-height floors, which correspondto the major sturctual transfer levels; cir-culation continues from these floors, up-wards or downwards, via escalators, 60in all.

Hong Kong and area managementdepartments

Main banking hall

import/export personnel

group head office training

area management

EDP and affiliated departments

Executive offices, group marketing

Group head office departments

chairman’s apartment

“in-between”Programs “volume” Programs

Reception, central confer-ence, boardroom, terrace

Reception, officer’s dinning.terrace

Credit department, terrace

Reception, staff amenities,terrace

The zoning is well suited to the building’sprogrammatic needs, permitting individu-als identities for its local, area, and inter-national corporate headquaters func-tions.The double height levels contains recep-tion areas, fire refuge terraces, and spe-cialized functions such as dining, recre-ation, and conference rooms.

159



The structure of the building is its moststriking aspect, visually and functinally.Both for reasons of flexible office plan-ning and to allow clear views of theharbor from all points, the floors are vir-tually column-free. Four mast towers,each composed of four tubular steelcolumns connected by hauchedbeams to act as Vierendeel trusses, riseon either side of the building, the frontand back pairs located outside thebuilding envelope. At five intermedi-ate levels, suspension trusses suspendthe weight of the floors in the zone be-low.

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

○

Structure

Secondary Structure

Primary Structure

60



Outside each double-height space is aterrace used not only for recreation butalso as refuge areas in case of fire. Evidentis the suspension truss, as well as the ty-phoon bracing for the windows. The glass-enclosed escape stairways are finely de-tailed.

Visitors and employees alike move by el-evator to the various double-story spacesin the building and, from there, by escala-tor to the intervening floors. At the centralelevator core, Foster has pulled the flooraway from the elevator shafts, allowing aview of them rising through the building.The dramatization of movement contin-ues in the double-story levels, whereswitch-back escalators, along with trussesand hangers, sweep through the space,and where glass elevator shafts and es-calator undercarriages reveal the motionof machinery.

Terrace

61



SunscoopLight the Atrium

Looking up to the ceiling of the atrium on asunny day one sees what appears to besome kind of glazed vault through whichsunlight gently filters. But this cannot be, sincethere are 25 floors of offices above this ceil-ing. In fact it’s all done by mirrors. This is thefamous “sunscoop”--a huge periscope pro-jecting sunlight onto the banking halls andthrough the glazed underbelly to the pub-lic plaza beneath the building. It has twomain components: a bank of flat mirrors at-tached to the south side of the building atlevel 12 and a curved canopy of convexmirrors suspended over the atrium.

62




The mirrors move in one plane only, adjust-ing to the height of the sun above the hori-zon but not to its east/west position. Thismeans that the light falling inside the build-ing moves across the atrium space duringthe day, just as it would if shining directlythrough a skylight. The mechanism is basi-cally the same as that for motorised exter-nal louvres, except that the motors are con-trolled by a computer programmed to knowprecisely how high the sun will be on everyday of the year.

63




64



Modules

Speed, quality and compactness:these were the three main reasons forthe decision to package the air-han-dling plant and lavatories into con-tainer-size modules made on a produc-tion line and shipped to the site fullyfitted out, commissioned and tested.There are 139 modules stacked in toweson the east and west sides of the build-ing. They are linked together by riserswhich were also prefabricated in twoand three-storey high steel frames.

65



Between Hong Kong Bank & Harbor

Foster’s scheme for reorganizing StatueSquare and the Star Ferry Terminal.

66



Works Cited

1. “The Hong Kong Bank” Proressive Architecture. Vol. 67. March 1986. pp. 67-109.2. “Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank” The Architectural Review. Vol. 179. April 1986. pp. 35-117.3. “Hong Kong Bank” Detail. Vol. 4. July 1986. pp 357-366.4. “Hong Kong Bank Annexe” Norman Foster-Building and Projects. Vol. 4. 1982-1989. pp. 18 - 29.

“Innovation occurs in almost every aspect of the bank’s design andconstruction. For its efficient seawater cooling system, its bridgelikesuspension structure, its socially oriented organization, and just themany products developed specifiically for it, the bank will be longremembered.”

67

hong kong bank

Documents

new hong kong bank building

terrace hong kong

central hong kong

hong kong operations

hong kong bank norman

bank chairman

aluminum structure

story structure