HKDI Competition

This award winning proposal for the Hong Kong Design Institute organizes the elements of the facility into an open “L” shaped structure extending along two major local streets. The “L” consists of a series of seven permeable levels where classrooms and support facilities form a constellation of solids within a shared circulation network. A bamboo scrim wraps the entire assembly, acting as a brise-soliel and defining major program blocks and access points from the North and West through open slots and apertures.

Opening up to the South and West, the classrooms and support facilities are anchored by a central theater and public display core building clad with pre-patinated red-oxide metal panels. This intentional inversion of the primary public and private zones of the complex brings the public into the Design Institute through the wall of creative energy and activity containing the classrooms, labs and studios. Placing the theatre core in the center of the site also anticipates the future expansion of Phase II that will ultimately result in a more symmetrical disposition of public and private zones—always defined at an urban scale by the educational perimeter and the more public central core.