In this blog, our executive director of structural building engineering in Asia, Winxie Wong delves into the intricate details of the project design team’s façade of 11 Skies - Hong Kong’s game-changing retailtainment and tourism landmark.
“The uniqueness of this project lies in its strategic location, seamlessly connected to Hong Kong's transportation hub and offering direct access to the airport and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge” says Winxie.
Located adjacent to Hong Kong Airport Terminal 2, 11 Skies is one of the largest mixed-use developments in Hong Kong to date. Covering an impressive 15,000 square meters, with a facade spanning 92,000 square meters, it encompasses a diverse range of spaces including offices, entertainment areas, dining outlets and an indoor children's play area featuring a real aeroplane.
The architectural focal point is its façade, inspired by the elegance of paper planes and paying homage to its proximity to the airport. Crafted from aluminum panels, this distinctive design element wraps around the various corners of the project, creating a visually striking effect. To achieve the paper plane inspired design, a unitized control system was employed, integrating specialized profiles for the façade and ensuring optimal façade performance. The challenge lay in the complicated, intricate intersections, which forms the compass geometry structure. The intersections were created using CNC technology, a computer-controlled milling machine tailored to the profiles. The result was sharp, precise joint intersections that fit like a glove.
The building’s color scheme is inspired by car coatings and technologies. Dichroic paint was used, blending shades of purple and red to get the desired effect, a process which took three years.
The complexity of this project also extends to the glazing. The skylight system uses parametric complex geometry. The top skyline together with the interior measure the stories high, with a 15-meter glass wall inside combined as one structure. At 67 meters long, 30 meters wide and 15 meters high, it posed significant engineering challenges. To ensure the façade performance could survive in the face of extreme weather, such as typhoons, CNC milling technology was used on the steel structure, providing crucial stability.
Approximately 400 CNC nodes have been meticulously integrated into the structure of skylight and interior glass wall system with parametric geometry, divided across 250 assembly modules. The inclusion of thousands of irregular-shaped triangle glasses also adds to the project's complexity. The façade systems were successfully completed and performed well even in extreme weather conditions, including heavy rainfall and typhoon threats experienced in recent months
Successfully completed in June 2023, 11 Skies marks a significant achievement in global architectural innovation and engineering excellence.