Uploaded on 2020-04-12 by Shu Ting Kelly Tang

The HSBC Headquarters in Hong Kong is a high-tech building designed by Norman Foster in 1985. The 44-storey building is one of the skyscrapers in the city. It is well know to be the most expensive building built at that time, and as Norman Foster's first overseas project. The technique used was revolutionary. The building sturcture is exposed outside, and the centre of the building is left empty as a 10-storey atrium. Mirrors are installed on the ceiling of the atrium to reflect sunlight into the building. With the exposed structure of the building, the office is raised up to leave the ground floor for people. In terms of "feng-shui", the traditional Chinese geomancy, allowing the flow of people in and out of the building is also a symbol to keep business booming. Also, to show the globalisation elements, the main steel structure was prefabricated in UK and shipped to Hong Kong. And many more parts were also assembled on the site, shipped from US, UK, Japan, etc. It can say that the whole building is prefabricated. (Fig: https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-eu.s3.amazonaws.com%2F01c801ac-2d76-11e8-9b4b-bc4b9f08f381?fit=scale-down&source=next&width=700)