Station mastery - design of the Hong Kong Station that acts as a central business district terminus for the Airport Express

Architectural Review, The, May, 1999 by Penny McGuire

Hong Kong's underground railway is one of the most efficient in the world. It can, though, be soulless. A new station in the CBD gives the line to Chek Lap Kok airport a fitting sense of departure and arrival.

Hong Kong Station, designed by Arup Associates in association with Rocco Design Partners in Hong Kong, is at the heart of a huge new transport interchange on the island, handling the thousands of commuters and visitors who arrive each day. The station is the terminus of the Airport Express, the fast rail link that whisks efficiently and cleanly between Hong Kong island and Chek Lap Kok; it is also the terminus of the commuter line to Tung Chung New Town on Lantau island, close to the airport. Ferry piers to outlying islands have been rebuilt to the north of the station, and nearby are the landing stages of the famous Star Ferries which ply so romantically across the harbour between island and the Kowloon peninsula. New bus termini have been added and drop-off points for private vehicles established. Pedestrians bound for the city can leave by elevated walkway; those for the old Central station and Island Line can walk along a new subway.

Hong Kong Island and the mainland are gradually growing closer together as developers reclaim more and more land from the harbour (to the great distress of those Hong Kong-ites who regard losing any more of the historic division as a tragedy). Four hectares of such land provide the rectangular station site, to the west of Star Ferries and the General Post Office, north of Exchange square. The station building itself - the only one of the new stations in an old commercial district - is being built in two phases and is the first stage of a larger development planned to include hotels, shops and office towers.

Designed in accordance with the client's guidelines applying to design of all the new stations, the scheme expresses both architectural and functional clarity. In general, a coherent structural order was established for all steel elements forming the roof trusses, glazing systems, canopies and footbridges throughout the building. Design of elements such as signage, telephone kiosks, lighting and furniture is consistent throughout the various stations, as is the use of materials. Platforms are rendered quiet and energy efficient by transparent screens designed by Foster Asia.

The first phase of Hong Kong Station, completed last June, provides five main levels, four of them underground and containing two stations, one above the other, each served by a concourse. The lower station is for the Tung Chung line; the upper one, the airport express (AEL). Above it, at ground floor level, an immensely light airy volume rises four storeys high with mezzanine galleries on three levels lining the inner side. This is the cumbersomely named In-Town Check-In (ITCI), the booking/check-in hall for the airport express and main entrance to the building.

This great space, floored in granite, is surmounted by a curvilinear titanium roof on a 12m column grid and enclosed along its seaward north side by a wall of glass rising the full height of the building and supported by steel bowstring trusses. Spanning the length of a city block, the soaring articulated structure with its immense transparent face is visually weighed down on east and west by solid granite-clad bookends. Responding architecturally to the massive podium of Exchange square, they house stairs, lifts and shopping units. Consumerism is an integral part of travel these days, but Hong Kong being one of the world's great trading meccas, consumers at Hong Kong Station are well looked after. The three levels of mezzanine galleries provide restaurants and more shops, reached by the glass lifts that shoot up and down through the whole building, and there are plans to build glazed retail decks between the station and future developments to the north.

At present only one platform of the AEL station is in operation, but after completion of the second phase of work, there will be separate platforms for arriving and departing passengers, each connected to car parks and taxis.

To bring light down into the AEL station, and relieve the oppression of being underground, the architects have cut a series of lightwells inside the hall's glass face. From beneath, the views clear up to the hall's curving light-reflective ceiling are dramatic, sustaining the excitement of arrival in one of the world's most exhilarating cities.

Architects Arup Associates in association with Rocco Design Partners

Structural engineer Ove Arup & Partners (HK)

M&E engineer Meinhardt (M&E)

Quantity surveyor Davis Langdon & Seah

Main contractor, specialist glazing, steelwork Aoki Corporation

Photographs Gareth Jones, Colin Wade, Stephen Jones