In 2018 , the landmark “The Murray”, located along Cotton Tree Drive in the heart of Hong Kong, reopened. The former government building has been transformed into a 5-star luxury hotel. Spread over 25 floors, the hotel now has 336 spacious suites and guest rooms, as well as five elegant dining restaurants, including a glamorous rooftop restaurant and a bar offering breathtaking panoramic views of Hong Kong. Taking on the challenge of the building's interior redesign, Mr. Fosters and his team at Fosters + Partners and the local architects from Wong & Ouyang HK Ltd managed to design the magnificent building as a fusion of the past and the future.

The Murray Building is built on a kind of island, completely framed by a wide variety of streets. The tower is distinguished by the striking pattern of its white facade, which consists of a grid of square windows. The hotel's terraces around the arches – an architectural signature of the building – offer stunning views of the city, Hong Kong Park and the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens. The architecture of the original building is precisely adapted to Hong Kong's climate, for example, with windows set back a bit and carefully oriented to avoid harsh tropical sunlight. That's why it was decided that the new design would retain the building's facade. A large, old and valuable tree rising through a gap in the podium's parking slab was freed and preserved as the centerpiece of the arrival area for guests.

Based on the client's wishes, many diverse challenges arose in planning the redesign. For example, both the weight and acoustic performance of the new materials played a significant role. Another constraint was the thickness of the materials, which could not take up too much space in the interior. It was specified that the new dr ywall system could not be thicker than 180 mm in the bathrooms and guest rooms. All of these stringent requirements ultimately led to the selection of a drywall construction using Knauf’s product – the AQUAPANEL^® Cement Board Indoor.

The weight of the AQUAPANEL^® Cement Board Indoor is just 11 kg/m² at a thickness of 12.5 cm without losing anything in terms of its stability or robustness. The board is capable of supporting tiles of up to 50 kg per square metre, providing a wide range of design options. The AQUAPANEL^® Cement Board’s mold-, mildew- and water-resistant properties make it ideal for use in damp and wet areas, such as The Murray 's bathrooms, massage rooms and kitchens. When combined with gypsum board Knauf Denseshield , the system can achieve acoustical requirements of at least STC 53.

The multiple applications of AQUAPANEL^® Cement Board Indoor simplified planning processes, on-site logistics and materials management. The board's diverse proper ties meant that many of the architect's challenges could be overcome. The simple notch-cutting process meant that the imaginative design could be implemented in a cost- and timeefficient manner.

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