case studyfilm · harbourside hq
A tower is let on a floorplate. It is chosen on a view.
A renovated commercial office tower in Hong Kong, filmed for leasing. Everything measurable is already in the brochure. What the brochure cannot do is put a prospective tenant at the height they would be working at, looking at what they would be looking at.
Flown at the height of the floors being let
Commercial leasing material is a specification. Floorplates, ceiling heights, lift cores, efficiency ratios, end-of-trip facilities. All of it necessary, none of it the reason a company signs a fifteen-year lease. That decision is made on how the building feels to arrive at and what it looks out on, and neither is on a floor plan. So the tower was flown rather than walked.
The challenge
A tower is marketed as a set of numbers, because numbers are what a shortlist is built from and what an agent is asked for first.
But a shortlist is not a decision. By the time two buildings are being compared, the numbers are close enough to be a wash, and what separates them is unmeasurable: the arrival, the light, the thing you look at all day.
None of that survives a floor plan or a rendered elevation.
How we approached it
The film climbs the facade at the height of the floors being let, so the harbour arrives the way it will from a desk rather than the way it looks from the street.
Then it comes inside, through the lobby, the lift lobbies and the lounges, at walking pace.
It ends at night, when the district around it is doing the work of selling the address.
the filmthe delivered cut
Two minutes nineteen, ground to skyline.
Facade, arrival, floors, and the district at night.
Harbourside HQ · 2:19 · sound on
the lawwhat this one proves
Property is decided at eye level, from a height you cannot reach on foot.
Every measurable thing about a building is already public and already matched by the building next door. The unmeasurable part is the whole margin, and drone is the only way to put a viewer at the fortieth floor before they have agreed to a viewing.
Converted from Hong Kong dollars at indicative rates. Work is quoted and billed in HKD.
A building that has to be understood before anyone will visit it.
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