Highcliff

Highcliff is a luxury apartment building on a south slope of Happy Valley on Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong. The 75-storey building's construction (70 floors of which are liveable space) began in 2000 and was completed in 2003 under a design by DLN Architects & Engineers. It was the Silver Winner of the 2003 Emporis Skyscraper Award, coming in second to 30 St Mary Axe in London. The tower is the tallest "all"-residential building in Hong Kong island. Highcliff is thin for such a tall building; it has a slenderness ratio of 1:20 thus being one of the thinnest buildings in the world. Therefore, a passive wind damper was fitted to the top, the first of its kind for a residential building. This was installed because typhoons approach Hong Kong most late summers. Because of the obvious similarity with a nearby similar building The Summit, the two have been informally called "The Chopsticks". These two buildings highlight the characters of pencil-thin towers that are highly concentrated in Hong Kong.