The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Headquarters (HSBC Building) was designed by Foster and Partners in collaboration with the structural engineering firm, Ove Arup & Partners. The design emphasized a structural expressionism of the building envelope, and conversely provided a high degree of spatial flexibility inside the building.
Arup's description of the building envelope reads: "Our innovatory structural design comprised two rows of four 180m vierendeel steel masts linked by five levels of two-storey suspension trusses. This system carries all the structural loads, and allowed the creation of a spectacular deep column-free zone at ground floor level."
Keywords: China, People's Republic_access of China, PRC, Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Center, multistory buildings. Submitted by Timothy Crowther.
Style/Period
People's Republic_access of China (1949 CE - Present) Structural Expressionism