In a design world abuzz with the comings and goings of starchitects, the unusual design of Hysan Place would seem to be the result of one architect’s stroke of inspiration jotted in a notebook between films on a flight to Asia. Elevated gardens break through the mass of the 716,000-square-foot, 36-story skyscraper, dislocating blocks of offices and stores, in a new high-rise paradigm—the first of its kind built in Hong Kong, and maybe the world.
But the architects at Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) operate by the service rather than the genius principle, and rather than issuing take-it-or-leave-it design ultimata to clients, the architects listen—absorbing feedback in a dynamic design process of many iterations. Reacting to an earlier proposal, their client, Hysan’s late chairman Peter Lee, said he wanted the most sustainable building in Hong Kong. Was there a solution that would move air through the building to refresh the surrounding streets? He wanted to summon the breezes of more verdant times when the Causeway Bay neighborhood, now densely packed and stacked with offices and stores, was called Lee Gardens.