HSL TOWER GOING FOR GREEN BUILDING CERTIFICATION
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Hock Seng Lee Bhd (HSL) is proud to announce that its new headquarters will be Green Building Index (GBI) certified.
HSL Tower, as it will be known, will be one of eight GBI rated buildings and the first private GBI office in Sarawak.
The 10-storey HSL Tower is divided into three sections. The top six floors will be HSL’s new headquarters, housing its administrative base at the midpoint between the established city centre and fast growing Samarahan.
Level four is designed as office suites for long-term lease, while levels one to three will be La Promenade Mall, a services-oriented mall for an upscale supermarket, premium banking, pharmacy and restaurants.
The HSL offices on levels 5 to 10 will have 7,623-square-meter. The GBI certification means HSL Tower is estimated to be 20% more energy efficient.
“HSL Tower will be a showcase of our roots as a construction firm with specialties in advance methods. It is a signpost of where we want to be as an innovative firm. We will continue to be technology guided for Sarawak’s betterment,” managing director Datuk Paul Yu Chee Hoe said.
Yu said the company’s design brief for HSL Tower befits its slogan — “We’re building your future today”.
HSL Tower and its accompanying mall is the commercial focus of La Promenade.
At 200 acres, a quarter is zoned as commercial — facing the Kuching-Samarahan Expressway — while the remaining 150-acres stretching beyond a lake, which links to Sarawak River, are premium gated and guarded homes.
“GBI aside, HSL Tower will be lined with greens. Terraces around levels five, nine and 10 will be full of plants and trees. These wrap-around terraces constitute 25% of the overall floor area. It allows a pleasant environment for the office. The ground floor perimeter will be tree-lined. The strip of land along the expressway will be beautified continuously,” Yu said.
General manager Ling Lai Kiong explained how the modern all-glass facade of HSL Tower achieved maximum efficiency.
“We want to harvest natural light into our building while preventing heat build-up. To do this, we had to use special ‘low-e’ glass, which limits thermal transfer. As a result, we can reduce internal lighting and aircon usage,” Ling said.
Sensors placed throughout the building would also optimise energy usage, while glazed light tubes on the ground floor would let light into the basement carpark.
The building management has also drawn up a plan to inculcate “Reduce, reuse and recycle” values into its workflow.
“We will engage with shoppers, retailers and residents on our ‘Green Week’ events, where we collect pre-loved items for charity and for recycling,” corporate affairs manager Shirley Loo said.
The GBI certification will be the latest in a line of planning and design accolades for HSL. In April, La Promenade won the merit prize at the Malaysian Landscape Architecture Awards.
HSL was the first Sarawakian firm to win in the field dominated by peninsula Malaysia developers.
Past winners include UEM Sunrise, Gamuda Land, SP Setia and Setia Eco Glades.
The landscape judges praised La Promenade for allocating 15% of the development land to usable, green and open spaces — far above the Government guideline of 10%.
“HSL thrives on long-term planning, be it the GBI building or landscape master-planning. Trying out something new or going the extra mile is always going to be challenging and tough, but so far so good. Our new HSL Tower is not just a new building, it is a new way of thinking,” managing director Yu said.
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