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Cheung Kong Center

Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China

Urban Context

The 62-story Cheung Kong Center is located on a corner site in the prestigious Central

District (Central) on the north shore of Hong Kong. Situated at the intersection of

Garden Road and Queen’s Road Central, one of the city’s major commercial streets, the

2.38-acre (0.96 ha) property was once the site of a Hilton Hotel, a public parking garage,

and Beaconsfield House, a 1960s government office building.

The site overlooks Chater Garden to the northeast, one of Central’s most popular pub-

lic parks, and is surrounded by buildings of varying age, scale, and architectural character.

St. John’s Cathedral (1849), the oldest Anglican church in southeast Asia and one of the

city’s most historic edifices, lies to the immediate southwest and is adjacent to the three-

story former French Mission (1917), a neo-classical brick building currently the Hong

Kong Court of Final Appeal. Across Queen’s Road Central to the northwest is the Art

Deco former headquarters of the Bank of China and its neighbor to the immediate east,

the 590-ft.-tall (180-m) headquarters of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank (1985) by

Norman Foster. To the east across Garden Road is I.M. Pei’s Bank of China Building

(1990), the tallest building in Asia until 1992 at a height of 1209 ft. (369 m). The two

linked high-rise glass towers of Citibank Plaza (1992) are directly south of the site along

Garden Road.

Des ign Cha l lenges

The client, Cheung Kong Holdings, Ltd., a large property development and strategic

investment company, wished to create a landmark corporate headquarters of timeless

design that would stand out from Hong Kong’s aesthetically disparate skyline, whether

viewed from within the city or from Victoria Harbour, especially at night. The challenge

for the L A D-led design team was to create an elegant, simply profiled building

Cheung Kong Center

Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China

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form that would afford both the maximum

allowable building area and column-free floor

plates. Because the building site was at a major

urban intersection, the new headquarters also

had to provide various civic amenities at its

base. In addition, the steep slope of the site—

a 20-ft. (6.1-m) grade change from St. John’s

Cathedral down to Queen’s Road Central—

required the building’s design to include con-

nections to the surrounding pedestrian walk-

way system. In meeting these challenges, the

design also needed to follow the Chinese prac-

tice of feng shui (space creation in harmony

with the environment).

Civ ic Ameni t ies

The Cheung Kong Center’s design organizes

the steep topography of the site on three levels,

each with its own distinct character. Along

Queen’s Road Central, for example, a lower

landscaped plaza provides access from the

north to the main lower lobby entrance. Open

to the public, the plaza is furnished with

benches and features a tall granite wall whose

surface is awash with falling water to dampen

the noise of passing vehicular traffic. Beneath

the building is a sub-grade parking structure

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with six levels that accommodates more than

1,000 vehicles for both tenants and the public.

Along the sidewalk at the edge of the car park

are a post office and public restrooms.

A cascade of broad stone stairs and a bank

of exterior escalators bring pedestrians to the

middle level, located nearly 20 ft. (6 m) above

Queen’s Road Central. The northern portion

of this level is designed as an “urban balcony”,

offering vistas along this major thoroughfare

and over Chater Garden. Feeding the water

wall below is a large pool with fountains that

produce soothing ambient sounds to counter

the clamor of the lower street traffic. A motor

court accessed from Garden Road brings vehi-

cles directly to the tower’s upper entrance and

also leads to the car park below. Paths to a sys-

tem of raised pedestrian walkways serving City

Bank Plaza, Chater Garden, and other neigh-

boring areas also occur at this mid-level.

At the third and highest level of the site is

Cheung Kong Park, created by the building

owners to be a welcoming natural environment

for the enjoyment of all. Lushly landscaped

with native plantings, a lily pond, and other

small water features, this green oasis is located

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Queen’s

RoadCentral

Garde

nRoad

along Battery Path, the pedestrian link

between St. John’s Cathedral and the former

French Mission. Functionally integrated with

these important historic landmarks, Cheung

Kong Park is a verdant retreat from the hectic

pulse of the city and generously enhances the

pedestrian realm of Hong Kong Central.

Bui ld ing Des ign

Cheung Kong Center has become one of the

city’s preeminent and most easily recognized

structures. Its maximum height established by

the glide path between the Hong Kong &

Shanghai Bank and the Bank of China, the

center stands in powerful compositional and

aesthetic contrast to its two prominent high-

rise neighbors. Square in plan, minimalist in

exterior profile, and rising to a height of 928 ft.

(283 m), the Center is designed as an extruded

glass prism within a layered skeletal grid of

exposed stainless steel.

Principles of feng shui were employed to

determine the building’s plan shape, site orien-

tation, chamfered corners, and reflective glass

skin. Orienting the building’s square plan par-

allel to Garden Road rather than Queen’s Road

Central gave occupants of office floors on two

sides outstanding views of Victoria Harbour,

while those on the other two sides have vistas

toward the west or The Peak, the highest

mountain in Hong Kong.

The Lobby

The base of the Cheung Kong Center is

designed as a fully transparent, two-level lobby

to be entered from both the north and the

south. Glazed with high-performance Viacron

with 100 percent light transmittance, the large

enclosing walls were custom-fabricated. This

highly transparent zone rises to a height of 53 ft.

(16 m) above the lower street lobby and allows

multiple views of the landscaped tiered gardens

to the southwest as well to the surrounding

buildings and streets of the city. To limit the

imposition of multiple perimeter columns on

the lobby, all upper exterior loads are trans-

ferred to eight outer super-columns by means

of a two-story transfer truss placed at levels

four and five.

The central elevator core is clad in back-

lighted sheets of green-tinted textured glass

arranged in vertical rows alternating between

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flat panels and “V-shaped” projecting bays,

producing a luminous interior that is at once

aesthetically arresting and sumptuous. Accent

strips of dichroic glass mounted over fiber

optic lighting form the outer edge of the pro-

jecting glass bays and glow with an array of

changing colors when illuminated. At the

upper lobby level, two pairs of private express

elevators, sheathed in fritted glass to expose the

cabs, become freestanding animated sculptural

elements when in use. Ceiling panels, column

covers, and window mullions in stainless steel,

along with granite and marble floors and trim

(in hues of gray and green) complement the

color and textures of the central core to create

a visual symphony of refined finish and mate-

rial elegance.

Structura l System

To achieve both speed and economy in con-

struction, structural engineers Ove Arup and

Partners Hong Kong Ltd. designed an inner

core of concrete and an outer structural frame

of concrete-filled circular steel tubes placed on

a 23-ft.-7 in. (7.2 m) grid. Flexible, column-free

floor plates averaging 18,500 sq. ft. (1,720 sq m)

in area result from core-to-window wall dis-

tances varying from 36 ft. to 49 ft. (11m to 15m);

these are spanned with steel beams carrying

composite steel-and-concrete structural deck.

At each of the tower’s four corners, floors are

cantilevered some 18 ft. (5.5 m) from inset peri-

meter columns, enabling the exterior glass skin

to follow the building’s chamfered corners

without the imposition of any corner columns.

Off ice Env i ronments

To provide state-of-the-art office environments

for all the building’s occupants, a 16-in.-high

(400-mm) raised floor system allows for the

flexible distribution of power, telecommunica-

tions, and data cabling. The raised floor also

accommodates the building’s “Totally Adaptive

Air-conditioning System” (TAAS), which gives

building occupants direct environmental con-

trol of individual office spaces. The floor sys-

tem also allows for efficient and cost-effective

modification of internal office layouts to

accommodate organizational changes.

To admit as much natural light as possible,

floor-to-ceiling office heights of 9 ft.-10 in. (3m)

are standard. At the exterior wall, the column

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Typical floor plan: high zone

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grid may be subdivided into two offices, each

11 ft.-10 in. wide (3.6 m) with its own openable

window, as required by law.

Curta in Wal l as Tapest ry

The L A D-led design team created

facades of interwoven grids and spatial layers

for the skin of the tower which produced a tap-

estry like effect. Cesar Pelli & Associates and

H.M. Brandston & Partners, Inc., consulted

with the design team on the creation of the

curtain wall.

The exterior column bays are subdivided

with vertical mullions spaced on 7 ft.-10 in.

(2.4 m) centers. Each bay, in turn, is horizon-

tally organized into four window components:

two operable windows, each 2 ft.-6 in. (758mm)

wide, one on either side of the columns; and

two nearly square fixed vision glass panels.

Rectangular spandrel glass panels follow the

same subdivisions.

Glazing consists of silver-coated, laminated

glass treated to achieve maximum transparency

and light transmittance, sound attenuation,

and typhoon resistance. Because both the

vision and spandrel panels have the same exte-

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rior coating, the entire glass skin is undifferen-

tiated in the reflectivity of its surface, except on

the mechanical/refuge floors where louvers or

woven metal mesh enclosures occur.

Semicircular tubes of polished stainless steel

are paired at each exterior column face, adding

vertical emphasis to the façades and increasing

surface area to reflect light.

At the top and bottom of the spandrel glass

panels, small stainless steel cylinders are sus-

pended approximately 12 in. (305 mm) away

from the plane of the window glass and span

horizontally between projecting brackets. These

projections appear to float between the vertical

window mullions and provide added depth and

shadow to the building elevations. High-inten-

sity, adjustable uplights—mounted on brackets

extending 4 ft. (1.2 m) from the column covers

at every other floor—further embellish the

façades as projecting stainless steel elements and

provide illumination at night.

Layers in L ight

Both the profiles and layers of these stainless

steel façade components contribute significant-

ly to the tower’s tapestry-like exterior. The

exterior surfaces are all fabricated of stainless

steel with a “linen” finish because of its greater

reflectance, the first architectural use of this

finish on a high-rise in Hong Kong. Inter-

woven in an external tartan grid, the outer

surface, like the glass within it, shimmers with

changes in natural light throughout the day.

To ensure its distinctive contribution to

Hong Kong’s illuminated shoreline at night,

Cheung Kong Center further incorporates an

extensive system of fiber-optic lighting into the

building façades. More than 12,000 emitter

lenses placed at the intersections of all horizon-

tal and vertical mullions of the façades appear

as individual “stars” of light. Computer-con-

trolled and capable of changing color and light

patterns, this integrated lighting system gives

the building a shimmering appearance when

seen from a distance, as the lenses twinkle

within the floating tapestry of the curtain wall.

At the top of the tower, special studio lights

reflecting across the underside of the roof ’s

dramatically sloped soYts produce a nighttime

halo.

Urban Poise

At street level, the Cheung Kong Center seam-

lessly merges its dramatic lobby spaces with the

exterior civic amenities created around it.

Along the city’s visually vibrant skyline, it dis-

plays a quiet poise and elegance within a

relaxed exterior. In both cases, the Center

demonstrates corporate beneficence toward the

city and its citizens.

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