Bank of China Tower

With a limited budget and a difficult inland site, the owner requested a distinctive regional headquarters with an imposing banking hall and 130,000 m2 of office space. These criteria called for a tall and dynamic structure that would take advantage of the surrounding views while being robust enough to withstand a typhoon.

Clad in reflective glass that mirrors the changing sky, the tower anchors the expanding business district and provides a distinctive vertical axis on Hong Kong’s crowded skyline. At ground level, it is pulled back from the street to create a welcoming pedestrian environment that is fully accessible yet removed from urban congestion. Its innovative composite structural system of steel and concrete resists high-velocity winds and involved significant savings in construction time and materials.

Comprised of four vertical shafts, the tower emerges incrementally from a 52-meter cube and diminishes in mass, quadrant by quadrant, until a single triangular prism remains. The diagonal cuts that generate the prism create a sequence of atrium spaces that flood the tower with natural light.

The tower is surrounded by a broad promenade and flanked by cooling water gardens that muffle the surrounding traffic. In an intimate dialogue between architecture and nature, the triangular gardens echo the materials and geometry of the building, its stepped waterfalls and quiet pools making the most of the sloped site.