The giant bauhinia bud at the centre of Hong Kong’s financial nexus has bloomed with the opening of The Henderson, a shimmering architectural landmark with immaculate sustainability credentials. This 465,000-squarefoot, Super Grade A office towe, designed by the world-renowned Zaha Hadid Architects, has achieved recognition for its sustainability with a number of LEED Platinum and WELL Platinum pre-certifications. Its “green” qualifications are reflected – literally – in sinuous, “soft” facades that draw the adjacent city centre Chater Garden into the building, while its public areas connect to courtyards and more extensively planted gardens. With 36 storeys of high-tensile steel muscles seemingly popping through glass walls of more than 4,000 curved panels, The Henderson is topped by yet more glass, designed to admit – from a distance – the city below. Its transparent, column-less ballroom at the top of the tower, enclosed by 7-meters glass walls, allows panoramic vistas across Hong Kong and right into, perhaps, building design of the future.