Until Your Offices Look Like This, Keep Your TSCM Inspections Current

Dutch firm MVRDV recently completed an unusual project in Hong Kong that involved the gutting of an existing factory interior and its replacement with all-glass office spaces. Featuring glass walls, glass floors, and glass tables, 133 Wai Yip Street is conceived as a new working space for the business with nothing to hide.

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While glass architecture is not too unusual in itself, the 13-floor 133 Wai Yip Street building goes to remarkable lengths in the pursuit of transparency...

In MVRDV's model office (Arch-Innovativ was also involved in the project), music booms out of glass-encased speakers and computers rest on glass computer stands. Glass elevators also move through glass elevator shafts, and even the emergency fire-stairs are encased in (fire-retardant) glass.

"We are moving into a transparent society, businesses are becoming more open with the public, and people care more about what goes on behind closed doors," reckons MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas. "In that way, a clear workspace leaves nothing questionable, nothing hidden; it generates trust. But also it is an opportunity for the building to become a reminder of the industrial history of the neighborhood, monumentalized in a casing of glass." more