Airside
A gateway to Kai Tak

Situated in the center of Hong Kong’s former international airport Kai Tak, Airside – a new mixed-use building – is taking shape. With views over Victoria Harbour and the Kai Tak River, the 176 000-square meter building merges a 210-meter-tall tower with its base in a continuous form.

Airside offers visitors access to generous public spaces and green gardens through a series of exterior plazas and rooftop gardens suited for urban farming, restaurants, events, and recreation. Located on top of the new Kai Tak metro stations and in proximity to other public transport interchanges, the building will serve as the main gateway to the Kai Tak development in Hong Kong.

Airside is situated at a unique and rapidly transforming location in central Hong Kong. The Kai Tak Airport was Hong Kong’s international airport from 1925 until 1998, after which it was closed and replaced by a new, larger airport at Chek Lap Kok 30 kilometers West. The Kai Tak area is now in development, being transformed to a new central business district set to be a focal point of urban development and commerce.

As one of the most densely populated cities in the world, Hong Kong’s commercial spaces are typically designed to have the urban landscape extend into its buildings – and Airside is no exception. To support the thousands of people flowing through the Kai Tak metro station on a daily basis, the building’s retail space at the base is designed to accommodate this intense pedestrian traffic. To achieve this, the continuous building mass is composed of five volumes that step up from the Kai Tak River and culminate in the tower.

Airside advocates a sustainable green lifestyle through its facilities; sky farming, automated smart waste sorting and storage, natural ventilation, daylight enhancement, solar radiation protection, focus on thermal comfort, water saving, and rainwater management – not to mention the use of local materials and the establishment of Hong Kong’s first ever automatic bicycle parking bay to encourage green mobility.

Designed to target the highest sustainability ratings including LEED Platinum, the building will be one of the most environmentally friendly landmarks in town. Its flexible design allows tenants to efficiently adapt the building to future needs, aiming to be a pleasant place for people to stay and work throughout the building’s lifespan.

With the nearby cultural and leisure facilities that are under development, Airside will be a future-oriented and publicly accessible landmark in an area set to attract start-ups and creative enterprises alike.

Airside’s design creates a series of human-scale urban spaces at grade and rooftop gardens with spectacular views. A gently curving façade composed of fluted glass is evocative of the textile that anchored Nan Fung Group’s historic industry and the vertical grooves are present throughout the project from the façade to the interior and landscape design.

At the heart of the building, a spacious retail atrium of almost 66 000 square meters is filled with natural light, creating a natural gathering point. This central atrium culminates in a rooftop garden, above which a tower tops out at 200 meters, containing more than 110 000 square meters of grade A office and retail spaces, as well as provisions for a hotel. Both the tower and the base gently step down towards the southernmost corner, revealing and connecting the rooftops to the surrounding plaza and riverside promenade.