Vertical retailing in large dense urbanities is an understandable, if not inevitable, consequence of increased development onto finite real estate. However, retail suffers, often exponentially, as it leaves the street. Fourteen years in the making, Langham Place, in the heart of the Mongkok district in Hong Kong, is a two block 15-level mixed-use urban redevelopment project that took on this dilemma by flipping gravity in its favor. With an alluring rock, a compelling sky, and an express system that launches visitors to its top, the journey is all downhill from there. Langham Place today enjoys an incredulous 55 million visitors each year.

Within Langham Place, the DNA of Mongkok’s street markets are imprinted on the Spiral, a literal helix of gravity-fed boutique shops. The Spiral links the project’s upper heavens with its lower levels. The spectacle of the Digital Sky hovers above the Rockpile and the Atrium, which works to enhance the attraction both from outside and from within. An integrated office tower and hotel sitting atop the subway and city transport terminal fuels and completes the mix.

Project directed by Brian Honda while at the Jerde Partnership, Inc.