Kadoorie Biological Sciences Building, The University of Hong Kong

The Project

Designed primarily for research but with some teaching capability, this internationally award-winning building brings together the existing but formerly dispersed departments of Zoology, Botany, Ecology and Biodiversity and the University’s Institute of Molecular biology into one centre.

With ten storeys in height, this highly innovative building, not only answers the demanding architectural challenge of the site but, through its response to the issues of functionality, flexibility, safety, energy efficiency, sustainability, lifetime economy, buildability and ease of maintenance, set new standards for the design of research laboratories worldwide.

Sustainable Design Integration

Revolutionary functional laboratory design concepts are integrated into an environmentally responsive building that reduces CO² production by 36.7 tonnes per annum and which it is estimated will remain fully operable for over 50 years. The east and west façades are in double layer arrangement of glazed screens to produce natural ventilation to take away heat from equipment, reduce potential glare and solar heat gain from the predominantly east and west facing facades. The deep plan, shell and core planning approach allied to a modular building services distribution arrangement with principal plant spaces located externally (podium, external wall, and roof) has facilitated a very efficient 80/20 useable net-to-gross-floor-area ratio on each laboratory floor. This vastly reduced construction waste and energy expenditure in future modifications. Efficient yet flexible laboratory planning based on the latest laboratory space standards and modular, prefabricated, laboratory benching significantly increased the amount of available workstations.