No_2_February_1969 — Page 20

miles east of Central, is located in a valley near the bottom of Stubbs Road which slopes up towards the building and winds around it.

Access to the site is from Stubbs Road at the top edge of the valley or from Hau Tak Lane at the bottom of the valley; the difference in levels be- tween the two roads is approximately 36 ft.

In selecting this site for their new Asian head office, AIA made use of property previously occupied by their subsidiary company, Hong Kong Gar- age. Garage space was therefore in- corporated into their proposals and their requirements were enlarged to include staff amenities such as office staff cafeteria, garage worker's canteen and executives' dining room.

Since the site was on a steep slope, the basic concept was established in which a large platform at Stubb's Road level was created to form a base for the office building above. Car parking and garage facilities were naturally placed below this level, vehicular access to the office being from Stubb's Road and access to the garage from Hau Tak Lane. A ramp connection between the two levels is provided within the podium.

The size of the tower above this platform was established by plot ratio and studies of the proportions. The plot ratio was fixed by Government as 6, which gave the gross area of the building.

Initially an efficient plan was evolv- ed in which the service core, containing the lifts, staircase, toilets, and air- conditioning room, was placed in the centre of the office space. But the shape of the building became low and squat, so a second scheme was de- veloped whereby the service core was placed at the rear of the building. This improved the proportions of the tower, making it higher and slimmer. The increased height gave better views over

Typical floor

the surrounding area and created more open space at the platform level.

The tower was oriented on an east- west axis to minimise the sun load.

The tower core, measuring 57 ft. x 28 ft., was designed by arranging the requirements of four passenger lifts, one service lift, toilets, escape stair- cases and air-conditioning room in the most efficient manner. The office space was wrapped around three sides of this core and the overall dimensions of 138 ft. x 63 ft. 9 in. were arrived at from the required maximum travel distances from the office space to the escape routes, together with the re- commended office depth from the external windows.

LIFT

LAV.

DN

SERVICE LOBBY

A/C RM.

1 LAV.

LIFT

L

18

Ground floor

LIGHT WELL UNDER

A ĆE

STORE

A/C

OPEN AUTOMOBILET DISPLAY PLATFORMŲ

FOUNTAIN

FOOL

SCALE

Far East BUILDER, February 1969

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