Rare views and light colours define this Hong Kong family office redesign
Brewin Design Office redesigns penthouse family office for Shui On Land in Hong Kong, featuring rare views and light colours

Office architecture presents its own unique challenges, but even more so when the client comprises two generations negotiating a space in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai quarter that hasn’t really evolved, stylistically, in 30 years of business. For Singapore-based Brewin Design Office, the penthouse office redesign of the family-run property developer Shui On Land involved a delicate balancing between the diktats of the current chairman and his children.
For the former, fengshui considerations and his collection of calligraphy and antiques were important; and for the latter, the brief was for a casually sleek yet welcoming open-plan setting with connecting lounge and meeting spaces – the better for luring a new generation of clients.
The solution was to open up as much of the 10,000 sq ft space as possible to the 36th-storey panorama – the unobstructed sightline clear across Kowloon towards the sea is, for Hong Kong, a rare treat – and to replace the pre-existing 1980s dark wood moodboard with white oak wall panels, a light creamy palette, and customised, low-slung furniture accented with marble and teak.
Office redesign combines open plan and privacy
Meeting rooms have glass windows that turn opaque at the flick of a switch –ensuring privacy for business ventures pitching for funding, one of the new business models being developed by the family’s second generation. Which also explains the cluster of open-plan hot desks. These, says Bobby Cheng, Brewin’s founder and creative director, are dedicated to new businesses, ‘like an incubator office before they launch properly in their own spaces’.
The result is a family office redesign primed for its millennial close-up both in terms of aesthetics and its evolving corporate mandate of competing with property developers in Hong Kong and greater China, and investing in new businesses.
With the Shui On Land office finally wrapped after a long delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Cheng’s attention is now on a busy new year schedule of complex residential and commercial projects, including the Capella properties in Kyoto and Niseko.
INFORMATION
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Daven Wu is the Singapore Editor at Wallpaper*. A former corporate lawyer, he has been covering Singapore and the neighbouring South-East Asian region since 1999, writing extensively about architecture, design, and travel for both the magazine and website. He is also the City Editor for the Phaidon Wallpaper* City Guide to Singapore.
-
All-In is the Paris-based label making full-force fashion for main character dressing
Part of our monthly Uprising series, Wallpaper* meets Benjamin Barron and Bror August Vestbø of All-In, the LVMH Prize-nominated label which bases its collections on a riotous cast of characters – real and imagined
By Orla Brennan
-
Maserati joins forces with Giorgetti for a turbo-charged relationship
Announcing their marriage during Milan Design Week, the brands unveiled a collection, a car and a long term commitment
By Hugo Macdonald
-
Through an innovative new training program, Poltrona Frau aims to safeguard Italian craft
The heritage furniture manufacturer is training a new generation of leather artisans
By Cristina Kiran Piotti
-
A Xingfa cement factory’s reimagining breathes new life into an abandoned industrial site
We tour the Xingfa cement factory in China, where a redesign by landscape architecture firm SWA completely transforms an old industrial site into a lush park
By Daven Wu
-
Bold, geometric minimalism rules at Toteme’s new store by Herzog & de Meuron in China
Toteme launches a bold, monochromatic new store in Beijing – the brand’s first in China – created by Swiss architecture masters Herzog & de Meuron
By Ellie Stathaki
-
The upcoming Zaha Hadid Architects projects set to transform the horizon
A peek at Zaha Hadid Architects’ future projects, which will comprise some of the most innovative and intriguing structures in the world
By Anna Solomon
-
Liu Jiakun wins 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize: explore the Chinese architect's work
Liu Jiakun, 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, is celebrated for his 'deep coherence', quality and transcendent architecture
By Ellie Stathaki
-
Zaha Hadid Architects reveals plans for a futuristic project in Shaoxing, China
The cultural and arts centre looks breathtakingly modern, but takes cues from the ancient history of Shaoxing
By Anna Solomon
-
The Hengqin Culture and Art Complex is China’s newest cultural megastructure
Atelier Apeiron’s Hengqin Culture and Art Complex strides across its waterside site on vast arches, bringing a host of facilities and public spaces to one of China’s most rapidly urbanising areas
By Jonathan Bell
-
The World Monuments Fund has announced its 2025 Watch – here are some of the endangered sites on the list
Every two years, the World Monuments Fund creates a list of 25 monuments of global significance deemed most in need of restoration. From a modernist icon in Angola to the cultural wreckage of Gaza, these are the heritage sites highlighted
By Anna Solomon
-
Tour Xi'an's remarkable new 'human-centred' shopping district with designer Thomas Heatherwick
Xi'an district by Heatherwick Studio, a 115,000 sq m retail development in the Chinese city, opens this winter. Thomas Heatherwick talks us through its making and ambition
By David Plaisant