Office architecture presents its own unique challenges, but even more so when the client comprises two generations negotiating a space in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai quarter that hasn’t really evolved, stylistically, in 30 years of business. For Singapore-based Brewin Design Office, the penthouse office redesign of the family-run property developer Shui On Land involved a delicate balancing between the diktats of the current chairman and his children.
For the former, fengshui considerations and his collection of calligraphy and antiques were important; and for the latter, the brief was for a casually sleek yet welcoming open-plan setting with connecting lounge and meeting spaces – the better for luring a new generation of clients.
The solution was to open up as much of the 10,000 sq ft space as possible to the 36th-storey panorama – the unobstructed sightline clear across Kowloon towards the sea is, for Hong Kong, a rare treat – and to replace the pre-existing 1980s dark wood moodboard with white oak wall panels, a light creamy palette, and customised, low-slung furniture accented with marble and teak.
Office redesign combines open plan and privacy
Meeting rooms have glass windows that turn opaque at the flick of a switch –ensuring privacy for business ventures pitching for funding, one of the new business models being developed by the family’s second generation. Which also explains the cluster of open-plan hot desks. These, says Bobby Cheng, Brewin’s founder and creative director, are dedicated to new businesses, ‘like an incubator office before they launch properly in their own spaces’.
The result is a family office redesign primed for its millennial close-up both in terms of aesthetics and its evolving corporate mandate of competing with property developers in Hong Kong and greater China, and investing in new businesses.
With the Shui On Land office finally wrapped after a long delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Cheng’s attention is now on a busy new year schedule of complex residential and commercial projects, including the Capella properties in Kyoto and Niseko.
INFORMATION
-
Highlights from the transporting Cruise 2026 showsThe Cruise 2026 season began yesterday with a Chanel show at Lake Como, heralding the start of a series of jet-setting, destination runway shows from fashion’s biggest houses
-
Behind the design of national pavilions in Venice: three studios to knowDesigning the British, Swiss and Mexican national pavilions at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 are three outstanding studios to know before you go
-
Premium patisserie Naya is Mayfair’s latest sweet spotHeritage meets opulence at Naya bakery in Mayfair, London. With interiors by India Hicks and Anna Goulandris, the patisserie looks good enough to eat
-
A Xingfa cement factory’s reimagining breathes new life into an abandoned industrial siteWe tour the Xingfa cement factory in China, where a redesign by landscape architecture firm SWA completely transforms an old industrial site into a lush park
-
Bold, geometric minimalism rules at Toteme’s new store by Herzog & de Meuron in ChinaToteme launches a bold, monochromatic new store in Beijing – the brand’s first in China – created by Swiss architecture masters Herzog & de Meuron
-
The upcoming Zaha Hadid Architects projects set to transform the horizonA peek at Zaha Hadid Architects’ future projects, which will comprise some of the most innovative and intriguing structures in the world
-
Liu Jiakun wins 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize: explore the Chinese architect's workLiu Jiakun, 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, is celebrated for his 'deep coherence', quality and transcendent architecture
-
Zaha Hadid Architects reveals plans for a futuristic project in Shaoxing, ChinaThe cultural and arts centre looks breathtakingly modern, but takes cues from the ancient history of Shaoxing
-
The Hengqin Culture and Art Complex is China’s newest cultural megastructureAtelier Apeiron’s Hengqin Culture and Art Complex strides across its waterside site on vast arches, bringing a host of facilities and public spaces to one of China’s most rapidly urbanising areas
-
The World Monuments Fund has announced its 2025 Watch – here are some of the endangered sites on the listEvery two years, the World Monuments Fund creates a list of 25 monuments of global significance deemed most in need of restoration. From a modernist icon in Angola to the cultural wreckage of Gaza, these are the heritage sites highlighted
-
Tour Xi'an's remarkable new 'human-centred' shopping district with designer Thomas HeatherwickXi'an district by Heatherwick Studio, a 115,000 sq m retail development in the Chinese city, opens this winter. Thomas Heatherwick talks us through its making and ambition
