Thirty-Eight Floors Up, the Future Looks Lime Green

At the top of Zaha Hadid's Hong Kong tower, Studio Paolo Ferrari builds a bar that wants to make you forget where — and when — you are. Paolo Ferrari calls his design philosophy "timeless futurism" — a space rooted in the elegance of the past but propelled by the possibilities of the future. Peridot, his studio's cocktail bar on the 38th floor of Zaha Hadid Architects' The Henderson in Hong Kong, is his most complete attempt to build one.

The first thing you notice is the colour. Peridot is lime green — comprehensively, unapologetically, almost aggressively lime green. Walls, ceiling, marble service counter, floor: all in a shade that occupies the precise midpoint between organic and synthetic, between something growing and something glowing. Then the lights: over 20,000 of them, shining through frosted acrylic cylinders across the continuously curved walls and ceiling, creating an effect that Ferrari describes as akin to an exploded disco ball — though that does not fully capture the experience of standing inside it, with its simultaneous sense of infinite expansion and deep personal intimacy.

        

The service counter sits within a framed arch that functions as a theatrical stage, constructed from green marble that extends across the adjacent walls and onto the floor. A mirrored ceiling multiplies the illuminated bottle display above. Curvaceous mohair-upholstered sofas face sinuous windows overlooking the Hong Kong skyline. Behind the bar, a curved marble-lined corridor leads to a private windowless lounge where the 20,000 lights reach their most dramatic intensity, enveloping guests entirely and reflecting off chrome-finished surfaces. A bespoke cylindrical wine case — its cantilevered stainless-steel holders each displaying a single bottle with museum-object gravity — faces the lounge entrance. The bathrooms carry the green marble further still, with monolithic basin plinths and porthole mirrors ringed in light.

                

Every surface, object, and transition contributes to a holistic story that suspends disbelief while remaining entirely grounded in craft. At the top of one of the world's most expensive buildings, in one of the world's most visually intense cities, that is a promise Peridot keeps.