This is the headquarters for The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, otherwise abbreviated as HSBC. It is located in Central, Hong Kong. It is the fourth building built for HSBC in Central, all built in the same place. Here is the second one:
and here is the third one:
and the fourth one again:
The third building was at it's time of building, the tallest building between San Francisco and Cairo, Egypt.
It was also the first building in Hong Kong to be fully air conditioned.
The fourth building was was completed as of November 18, 1985, after 7 years of construction. The building costs, (calculated in the currency of that time), was Hong Kong $5.2 billion, making it the most expensive building built at that time.
It is 178.8 meters tall, has 44 floors, and 1,065,627 feet squared. 30,000 tons of steel, and 4,500 tons of aluminum. It used elevators, but mainly escalators connecting every floor. The building is divided into 5 different parts as you can see in the picture above. To give more room inside, the supporting structure is on the outside. The framework is the detail that defines the building. It consists of 32 steel pillars in groups of 4, with supporting five triangular trusses that support and lock the pillars.
Like in all of Norman Foster's buildings, it is very energy efficient. Like in his Reichstag dome, he has a cone of mirrors at the top of the atrium, providing natural light, and cutting down costs. It has a sunshade, ( again, like in the Reichstag Dome), the cuts down the glare. The floor is made of panels that can be lifted up to access the power, or air conditioning, etc. Instead of fresh water being used in the air conditioning system,
sea water is used, saving in transportation costs, as the building is right by a harbor.
This is a really cool building!
No comments:
Post a Comment