Aedas-designed The Beacon in Hong Kong won a Silver award for Best Residential Development at MIPIM Asia Awards 2018 and a Bronze award at Design for Asia (DFA) Awards 2018. Unilever Headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia, also received a Bronze award at DFA Awards 2018.

Executive Director Cary Lau drew inspirations from the city’s post-war structures to design The Beacon, setting an excellent example of contemporary interpretation of traditional architecture. In the early post-war years, it was common to create illegal iron balconies for residential units in Mongkok, a hyper-dense neighbourhood in Hong Kong, to maximise view and area. The building design reinterprets these structures in a modern way – the irregular protrusions create unobstructed views for each unit. Also inspired by the home gardens which people created on those iron balconies, a green wall on the podium façade is designed to further connect the building with the historical cityscape and offer more greenery at the pedestrian level.

Unilever Headquarters, designed by Executive Director Steven Thor (architecture) and Executive Principal Steven Shaw (interior), supports the spirit of community, collaboration, engagement and agility with a design that references to the traditional village planning in Indonesia. It has a ‘square’, ‘main roads’, and ‘streets’ to create a sense of community. The planning is focused on engaging group and individual work into zones to induce collaboration while maintaining privacy. The top four floors are office spaces with break-out areas; while the ground floor is dedicated to public and shared facilities. Surrounding the central, light-filled atrium that serves as a large event space are common facilities including a mosque, staff dining area, day care centre, fitness centre, beauty salon and multi-purpose hall.

The MIPIM Asia Awards recognise the industry’s best and brightest, rewarding innovation and achievement in a variety of fields; while DFA Awards celebrate design excellence and acknowledge outstanding designs with Asian perspectives.