Highcliff is a

luxury apartment A luxury apartment is a type of apartment that is intended to provide its occupant with higher-than-average levels of comfort, quality and convenience. While the term is often used to describe high-end regular apartments, or even typical apartmen ...

on a south slope of Happy Valley on the Hong Kong Island in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. The 75- storey building's construction (70 floors of which are liveable space) began in 2000 and was completed in 2003 under a design by DLN Architects & Engineers. It was the Silver Winner of the 2003

Emporis Skyscraper Award The Emporis Skyscraper Award was an award for architectural excellence regarding the design of buildings and their functionality. The award was presented annually by Emporis, a real estate data mining company with headquarters in Hamburg, Germany ...

, coming in second to

30 St Mary Axe 30 St Mary Axe (previously known as the Swiss Re Building and informally known as the Gherkin) is a commercial skyscraper in London's primary financial district, the City of London. It was completed in December 2003 and opened in April 2004. ...

in London. The tower is the tallest "all"-residential building in Hong Kong island. Highcliff is thin for such a tall building; it has a slenderness ratio of 1:20 thus being one of the thinnest buildings in the world. Therefore, a passive wind damper was fitted to the top, the first of its kind for a residential building. This was installed because

typhoon A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for a ...

s approach Hong Kong most late summers. Because of the obvious similarity with a nearby similar building The Summit, the two have been informally called "The Chopsticks". These two buildings highlight the characters of pencil-thin towers that are highly concentrated in Hong Kong.

References

External links

Highcliff official homepage
(Building elevation chart and layout plans for each floor are available as pdf.)
SkyscraperPage.com's entryEmporis.com
– Building ID 100639 Landmarks in Hong Kong Happy Valley, Hong Kong Private housing estates in Hong Kong Residential buildings completed in 2003 Residential skyscrapers in Hong Kong Pencil towers in Hong Kong {{HongKong-struct-stub

See also

References

External links