Architectural Photography: Jockey Club Innovation Tower by Zaha Hadid

We’re not going to lie, several months after the fact, we are still in disbelief that we were commissioned by Zaha Hadid Architects to photograph their first building in the amazing city of Hong Kong. The Jockey Club Innovation Tower at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University is a unique a very striking landmark. So, instead of trying to describe this with words, we though we’d just let our photos do the talking (which I have to say is better for everyone involved :)).

You can also see more pictures in our featured gallery here.

From the Architects:

The fluid character of the Jockey Club Innovation Tower is generated through an intrinsic composition of its landscape, fl oor plates and louvers, that dissolves the classic typology of the tower and podium into a seamless composition Iternal and external courtyards create new public spaces of an intimate scale which complement the large open exhibition forums and outdoor recreational facilities to promote a diversity of civic spaces.

Urbanism

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HK PolyU) has developed its own urban fabric by virtue of addition and growth over the last 50 years. The rich patchwork of various faculties, communities and facilities are strung together by a community of visually coherent yet very different buildings. The Jockey Club Innovation Tower is located on a very tight and irregular site on the North side of the campus. It creates and an accessible urban space which transforms how Hong Kong Polytechnic University is perceived and the way it uses its campus. The building projects a vision of possibilities for its future, as well as refl ecting on the history of the HK PolyU by encapsulating in its architecture the process of change.

Architecture

The new Jockey Club Innovation Tower re-examines and address a creative, multidisciplinary environment by collecting the variety of programmes of the School of Design. Having undergone a strict process of examination of the multiple relationships amongst their unique identities, these programmes are arranged in accordance to their ‘collateral fl exibilities’.

Priority lies in engaging the campus staff, students and public in a welcoming new space that acts as both the building’s entrance and organizer for the existing complex.

The new pedestrian level for the tower has been created as an open public foyer that channels deep into the building. The integrated pathway from Suen Chi Sun Memorial Square guides visitors to the main entrance. From here, a welcoming public space provides access to supporting facilities (shops, cafeteria, museum) through generous series of open exhibitions and ‘showcase spaces’ which span between the campus podium level and the ground fl oor.

From the entry foyer, staff, students and visitors move upwards through four levels of openly glazed studios and workshops. The many studios and workspaces accommodated within the new School of Design offer themselves as a variety of visual showcases. The route through the building becomes a transparent cascade of showcase and event spaces – allowing the student or visitor to visually connect and engage with the work and exhibits. These routes promote new opportunities of interaction between the diverse types of users. Voids bring in natural daylight, fresh air and the sense of continuity. In this way, the programmes of the tower, comprising learning clusters and central facilities, generate a dialogue between respective spatial volumes and disciplines of design.