Did you know that one of Hong Kong’s iconic shopping centres, Pacific Place, was extensively refurbished by acclaimed designer Thomas Heatherwick? Completed in 2005, the renovation was one of his early architetctural-ish works and first work in Asia (he has since completed 2 incredible projects in Singapore and is building more in China).
The refurbishment consists of a series of typically Heatherwick bespoke details, repeated across the massive shopping mall and creating a unique identity for the building. One of the signature features is curved timber panelling, which is used to clad ceiling beams around skylights.
The lifts are enclosed in scalloped glass enclosures, with glass lift cars finished in one of Heatherwick’s favourite materials, steampunk bronze.
Skylights at the accessible rooftop of the building are made up of many layers of glass with asymmetric ring shaped patterns that create an illusion of three dimensional shapes within the layers of glass.
One of the most famous and interesting details is in the toilets, where laminated timber is used to create ridged privacy barriers for the urinals.
The detail is modified even more interestingly for the toilet cubicles, with bent laminate timber doors that bend inwards instead of swinging like normal doors.
Images by Jonathan Choe
