Not Higher than Mountains
The International Commerce Centre being highest building in Hong Kong recently took fourth place in the world rating. And when the construction of the Makkah Royal Clock Tower in Saudi Arabia was finished, the tower lowered to fifth place in the list of the highest skyscrapers in the world and takes the third place by floors number.
The building International Commerce Centre (ICC Tower) is situated in the Union square in West Kowloon. The construction was realized by an operator of Hong Kong underground railway CCO Corporation Limited and general developer Sun Hung Kai Properties. The first official nomination of the project was Union Square Phase 7 and the present name of the tower was obtained in 2005. A conceptual design of the skyscraper was developed by the famous architectural bureau Kohn Pedersen Fox in cooperation with Wong & Ouyang (HK) Ltd. According to the first version of the project, the tower would have a height of 574 m. In that case 102-storey building would be higher at 75 m than the skyscraper International Finance Centre II being the leader in the city that time.
But since the Hong Kong law prohibits erecting something higher than surrounding mountains, particularly, local attraction Victoria peak, sizes were corrected and decreased. As a result, the ICC Tower has a height of 484 m and 118 floors. Thin cone-shaped convergent angles of the tower and slightly inclined bandy shapes at the bottom are for optimization of structural characteristics. The silhouette of the basis visually accentuates a relationship between the building and surrounding landscape, a prolongation upwards is transformed into sheds situated from three parts and spectacular atrium entrance group in the north part of the construction. The prolate atrium creates a public space designed to place objects of retail trade and high-speed underground station. It is interesting that when a place for erection of the building International Commerce Centre was being chosen a presence of the main transport system of Hong Kong, a high-speed underground was taken into account. The ICC Tower is situated directly under Kowloon underground station being one of the most important traffic interchange of Hong Kong. It is possible to reach the international airport Chek Lap Kok from there.
International Commerce Centre
Location: Hong Kong, China
Destination: multifanctional
Architecture: Wong & Ouyang (HK) Ltd.
Design architecture: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates
Landscape design: Belt Collins & Associates
Developer: Sun Hung Kai Properties (Harbour Vantage Limited)
Engineering systems: Arup
Height: 484 m
Floor number: 118
Floor area: 262 176 m2
Lift count: 30 (14 – regular, 6 – express, 2 – VIP, 4 – in parking)
Construction: 2005 – 2010
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Materials obtained from open sources