Feature
 
 
June 2000

Man Yee Building
 


Man Yee Building

Worthy successor

Located on a narrow, gently sloping site between Queen's Road Central and Des Voeux Road Central, the redevelopment of the Man Yee building follows cues from its prestigious predecessor


Retail mall

The original Man Yee Building was considered prestigious in its day -- going so far as having the first escalator installation in Hong Kong -- and client Man Hing Hong Lands Investment wished to match this image with the new tower. The original building comprised an office tower above a podium that stretched along Pottinger Street between Des Voeux Road Central and Queen's Road Central. By virtue of the site's location, the podium arcade became heavily used as a pedestrian thoroughfare from the tramway. In their design for the new building, architects Rocco Design sought to create an arcade similar to the original, with pedestrians passing up an escalator from Des Voux Road Central before strolling through the arcade, and an office tower of equal prestige.

The podium
Unlike the darker environs of the previous building's arcade, Rocco Design created a sequential series of bright, airy and open spaces along the course of the mall. Sitting above three levels of basement carparking, the podium houses three levels of retail and restaurant space, and a separate Grade-A standard office lobby.

        Passing from the Des Voeux Road Central entrance up the escalator to Level 1, the first void approached is a double height space followed by a triple volume void with a coved ceiling at the top. With natural light entering through clerestory glazing on the Pottinger Street side, the coved cieling helps direct lumens downward and bathe the narrow atrium in light. A bank of escalators is located against the western wall of the atrium, set against a wall clad in slabs of Azul Bahia -- a blue marble -- as chosen by the client and painstakingly selected and mixed from two batches. At the Queen's Road Central entrance, pedestrians and shoppers pass beneath a framed louvered canopy and glazed ceiling as they pass by rows of shops.
        To heighten the appeal of the Grade-A specified office space in the tower above, the client specified a distinct entrance lobby, set apart from the retail mall. Fronting Des Voeux Road Central, the spacious entry hall eschews the older classical stylings to be lined with an irregularly undulating curved wall of aluminium cladding, additional metal features and stone. At the far end of each gently-lit elevator waiting area is a wall of feature glass.

The office tower
The client's brief specified intent to retain the image of a prestigious office tower from the previous development -- a low key and elegant appeal yet still standing out in the crowded CBD. The exterior of the development is clad in a combination of a unitised curtain wall system, vitreous enamel panels and aluminium cladding. Louvres encase the building services levels, while unifying vertical aluminium features rise up to the roof level, where the building is topped with an architectural mast.

        Two layout zones can be detected by looking at the interlocking office tower form, denoted by the curved facade which rises up to the 19th level refuge floor, and the rectrangular structure thereafter. The effect is heightened through the employ of two tones of glazing -- silver-on-clear and silver-on grey is used as well as darker hues of curtain wall. Indoors, though differing in size both typical plans are similar in that the services core is placed to the west side, as an environmental buffer against the western sun, with very efficient and relatively uncluttered floorplates on each level.

developer  Man Hing Hong Lands Investment
architect  Rocco Design Ltd
project manager  Prudential Surveyors International
structural engineer  CM Wong & Associates
main contractor  Gammon Construction


-- Building Journal