October 19, 2020
This office interior on the 50th level of the I.M. Pei-designed Bank of China building in Central, Hong Kong, is the second project WEIJENBERG has designed for an online betting company in China. The look and feel of this workspace interior follows the previous project in Shenzhen, while exploring new techniques, textures and forms.
Flow and fluidity are the core principles of the forms adopted in both projects. The team was inspired by how money flows in the online betting business and this was interpreted spatially using wood and marble. In the Hong Kong project, a ribbon-like wooden form wraps and flows through the space - across walls, furniture, and ceilings, creating quiet spaces and framing spectacular views of Hong Kong Harbour and and Kowloon Bay.
Using parametric design tools, the WEIJENBERG team arrived at a visually powerful and materially efficient design: a sculpturally beautiful yet practical solution.
The walls and seats are fabricated from ash wood in a material-saving process that involves gluing together smaller square-sections before CNC milling the final shape. 5-axis CNC robots were used to fabricate the wooden form in a workshop in Nantong, China. These were then transported to Hong Kong where they were put together piece-by-piece on site. The reception counter and tables were machine-sculpted from white marble, which were quarried from Quyang in Hebei Province, China.
This high-profile project demanded a speedy installation process with minimal construction time on site. This was achieved with close collaboration between the WEIJENBERG team and the fabrication team led by artist-sculptor Mr. Wang in Nantong, China.