PolyU tops out Zaha Hadid-designed Jockey Club Innovation Tower
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has achieved a construction milestone with the topping out of Jockey Club Innovation Tower on its campus in Hong Kong, which has been designed by UK-based design practice Zaha Hadid.
The 15-storey tower will serve as the new home for the PolyU’s PolyU School of Design (SD) and the newly established Jockey Club Design Institute for Social Innovation. The building will be 76m high and will have a footprint of 15,000 square metre.
The design of the building blurs the classic typography of tower and podium, thereby creating a seamlessly fluidic structure. The building is being built at the northeastern corner of the university campus.
The facility will offer space for 1,800 staff and students and will house a lecture hall, 10 classrooms, design studios and workshops as well as a design museum, exhibition space and a communal viewing lounge.
Construction of the facility is partly funded through a donation of $249 million from the HKJC Charities Trust. Construction on the scheme began in 2009 and is slated for completion by mid-2013.
