AIA Central, located on the site of the former Furama Hotel in Central, is a 39 storey grade A office building with a gross floor area of approximately 41,800square metres. Demolition of Furama Hotel commenced in December 2001, with construction of the new tower commencing in November 2002.

A wide range of innovative design and construction techniques, building systems and materials are adopted in the building. As a result, AIA Central has achieved a HK-BEAM rating of Excellent and awarded a Merit Award in Quality Building Award 2008.

A new footbridge connects to Chater Garden and the elevated walkways to Admiralty and the Cheung Kong Centre. Provision has also been made for future access to the Central Reclamation to the North. These will help further improve the local pedestrian walking environment.

Floor plates up to the 18/F cover 80% of the site area (rather than the conventional 65%) to provide large floor plates for modern flexible office space suitable for large multinational corporations. This also lowers the number of floors needed to provide the same floor space. Benefits include reduced use of materials (for the core, walls, floors, lift shafts, stairs, etc.) and energy for cooling (since the lower external wall-to-floor area ratio permits less solar gain).

Existing basement retaining walls and pile caps have been reused, minimizing impacts to surrounding structures, saving time, energy, resources and minimizing waste in demolition, excavation and construction, resulting in less landfill. A selfclimbing form has been used for the reinforced concrete core speeding up the construction cycle to 4 days per floor and further reducing temporary formwork and the waste that this creates.

The building's structural frame is made from recyclable structural steel members, precisely prefabricated off site for much quieter, cleaner and quicker onsite assembly. Composite floors consist of reinforced concrete slabs on steel decks which work not only as part of the structure but also act as left-in formwork, totally eliminating the need for temporary timber formwork and propping during their construction.

External facades are fully unitized curtain walls using double-glazed insulated glass units with “low-e” reflective coating for best heat and noise insulation performance. Sun shading is provided to the south, with core areas pushed to the west and fully cladded to minimize afternoon heat gains and save further energy for cooling. Solar panels on the roof will supplement the building's hot water needs.

Prefabricated components have also been widely used internally to minimize concrete, temporary timber and wet trades helping to reduce waste and provided for a cleaner, safer and healthier site. Examples here include dry wall systems for partitioning and specially designed standardized left-in steel formwork for stairs.These initiatives have already reduced significantly the impacts of the building in its construction and will continue to provide long-term benefits across the rest of its operational life. As such, AIA Central is in many ways a highly environmentally friendly and sustainable development, providing in the Hong Kong context a leading benchmark for HK-BEAM.

AIA Central in night	Self climbing form, structural steel frame and unitized curtain wall