Dame Hadid is no stranger to drawing together elements to intensify existing urban landscapes, ensuring that her designs, no matter how unconventional, fit their intended users' purposes. Speaking before the Tower's opening, the world-renowned architect, recipient of more than 100 awards and first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture prize, mentioned that "we like to work with fluidity because we believe it visually simplifies everything, and you can then cope with more complexity in a building without crowding or cluttering the visual scene". "Life", she said, "is not made to a grid", likening her architecture to irregular and uneven natural landscapes that nevertheless make people relax.
The Tower's fluidity, achieved through the careful blending of its landscape, floor plates and louvres, allows it to seamlessly merge with its podium. Voids draw in natural daylight and fresh air, and heighten the sense of external continuity. Internally, the long escalator leading up from the foyer acts as a route to the teaching spaces above. The intention is to promote opportunities for interaction and allow the different activities happening in the Tower to create coordinated repertoires in a nurturing space.
That very human element of the Jockey Club Innovation Tower's design, with its expectation of connections and the capacity for creativity, will provide an ideal setting as the School of Design expands in a broader range of design disciplines, including product design, communication design, advertising design, digital and interactive media, and environment and interior design, among others. The Tower's 15,000 square metres of net floor area can accommodate more than 1,800 students and staff members, offering them state-of-the-art facilities for multidisciplinary design education and innovation, including exhibition areas, multifunctional classrooms and lecture theatres, design studios, workshops and a communal lounge.
As PolyU Council Chairman Ms Yang put it in her speech at the opening ceremony, the Tower's tranquillity as well as the energy and excitement generated within it combine in a perfect statement of the work-life balance that the University seeks to encourage.
The Tower's tranquillity as well as the energy and excitement generated within it combine in a perfect statement of the work-life balance that the University seeks to encourage.
PolyU Council Chairman Ms Marjorie Yang
