AIRSIDE: A People-Oriented Urban Oasis

The construction industry builds cities by brick and by heart, as we hold the motto of “Design for Future, Build for Life”, it’s our responsibility to apply the principles of sustainable development in building and meet the needs of the neighbourhoods. Ir Thomas Ho, Chairman of the Construction Industry Council has recently visited AIRSIDE, a mixed-use commercial development in Kai Tak that has completed lately, to learn about how this landmark project has taken the community into consideration in its design and during construction, and committed to sustainable development.

Owned by Nan Fung Group, the development of AIRSIDE aligns with the group’s "SEWIT", the sustainable development framework which promotes Social Cohesion, Environment, Wellness, Innovation, and Technology. Steven Au, Deputy General Manager (Project) of Nan Fung Group, said that as AIRSIDE is located at the junction of the old district of San Po Kong and the newly developed Kai Tak area, it has the responsibility to bring two areas together, create social impact, and meet the communities’ desires for public space.

Greenery constitutes 33% of the Site Area

With 47 floors and a height of 200 metres, AIRSIDE is the tallest building in the Kai Tak Development Area. The project comprises a Grade A office space and a multi-storey shopping mall, it is also connected to the Kai Tak MTR station and underground shopping street.

Nan Fung Group started from a cotton yarn factory when found. To honour the group’s history, AIRSIDE pays homage to its legacy by weaving a design inspired by textile. For example, curved glasses are used for facades which soften the outlook of the building when viewed from distance.

To facilitate public recreation and enjoyment, AIRSIDE designed a 20m setback along Kai Tak River to provide a wider promenade. Besides, no fences are built between the plaza and the building, community activities can be held at there for the public to enjoy.

In addition, the design of AIRSIDE incorporates urban life and natural environment, providing the public a sense of nature as it offers cascading greenery, an open-air rooftop, terraces and surrounding grounds that constitute 33% of the site area, which is 50% more than the 20% required by the Sustainable Building Design Guidelines, as said by Clement Yeung, Senior Project Manager (Project) of Nan Fung Group. To further develop the green landscape, AIRSIDE is also adorned with greenery as the project features a 1,000-square-metre green plant wall.

Automatic Refuse Collection System

Sustainable development in Hong Kong is taking a step forward thanks to the pioneers who dare to try and drive the industry. Sustainability is a key aspect of AIRSIDE’s development, and the project has set the “CO6" goals, including “carbon reduction”, “comfortable and healthy environment”, “cost-effective smart technology”, “conspicuous performance and consumption”, and “community hub creation”.

In terms of carbon reduction, AIRSIDE is the first commercial building in Hong Kong to adopt the “District Cooling System” with the chilled water amount to 30,000 kw refrigeration ton, resulting in a carbon reduction effect equivalent to planting 9,700 trees. Additionally, an innovative “Automatic Refuse Collection System'” is used at AIRSIDE, in which general waste and recyclables are transferred to the basement plant through waste disposal inlets. The system is equipped with a smart waste management tool that will analyse and share waste data to tenants to engage further waste reduction.

To create a community hub, AIRSIDE has introduced a “Smart Automatic Bicycle Parking System”, which is the first of its kind in Hong Kong. The system is controlled by sensors and conveyor belts, and users can park their bikes through a smart self-service kiosk linked with the NF Touch App. Vincent Wong, Assistant General Manager (Project - EM) of Nan Fung Group, explained that there are 48 bike parking spaces in AIRSIDE to serve the public, and they hope to make use of this initiative to promote low carbon transport to the neighbourhoods.

BIM to Facilitate Construction Deployment

The construction period of the AIRSIDE project was merely 930 days, and the construction site covered 17,800 square metres. The top-down construction on 4-stories of basement with high water level and the MTR line in the underground have added construction difficulties to the project. Construction team from Hip Hing stated that the adoption of advanced construction technologies was necessary to assist in the construction, and Building Information Modelling (BIM) has played an essential role. "The industry has been actively promoting the concept of integrated CDE (Common Data Environment) in recent years, and I can say that AIRSIDE is one of the successful examples. Since the project commenced in 2019, Nan Fung Group has taken the lead in working with us to fully deploy the CDE platform. Every procedure, from design to approval are all done in CDE and BIM in a real-time manner." said Dicky Woo, Deputy Project Manager of Hip Hing.

Conventionally, construction personnel have to deploy projects through physical 2D drawings, but AIRSIDE has implemented the "5D Planning" to sort out complex situations in Top Down Construction to detail the phrasing of works and logistic planning, even the productivity review in the later stage can be carried out in BIM, enabling safe, quality and timely project completion.

AIRSIDE is connected to San Po Kong through a footbridge. Dicky Woo said its construction relied heavily on BIM in tackling challenges. For example, the bridge steel structure and decorative claddings was designed and coordinated using BIM, and BIM has helped on drawing productions and shared them with the factories to prefabricate modules. In addition, since the footbridge crosses four busy traffic lanes, the construction would inevitably have adverse impact on nearby traffic. The team thus made use of BIM to optimise the workflow in early stages in order to complete the project as soon as possible to reduce inconvenience caused to the public.

Ir Thomas Ho appreciated the AIRSIDE project team for placing sustainable development as the core value of the project, and the team has taken community’s needs and greening into account; moreover, digitalisation was fully adopted to assist in the construction process. Ir Ho highly regarded the project as being a pioneer in many respects, including incorporating visions of carbon neutrality and total lifecycle property management into their design, which has set the bar for the industry to follow.