Introduction Should one adapt to or fight against context? Coldefy & Associates’ projects often do both at once,and never more so than with the very first building by Thomas Coldefy and Isabel Van Haute - the Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI). As a leading design education institution in Hong Kong, HKDI brings together the strengths of four design departments to offer design programmes spanning across architecture, interior and product design, communication design and digital media, design foundation studies, and fashion and image design. Winner of the international architecture competition, Coldefy & Associates proposed a scheme of strong tectonics in order to withstand a hostile environment: limited at 55 metres in height, the Institute is located at the feet of soaring residential towers set in a landscape of hills and ocean. Taking their cue from local buildings, which are divided into layers, the architects designed a scheme in three parts: a podium which they intended as an extruded landscape, a vast public space containing the lecture halls and other facilities; four towers housing the classrooms; and, on levels seven and eight, a suspended platform containing the library facility and administrative offices. Positioned diagonally, a spectacular escalator rises through the central void to link the podium to the platform, while the steel net of the Institute’s exoskeletons supports not only the towers’ concrete floors but also the deep cantilever of the platform. This very bold career début did not go unnoticed. Accompanied by visuals, sketches and models, this exhibition will take you from the design process to the realisation of the emblematic HKDI building.