The Healthy Life Center is designed as a rehabilitation facility for select patients, their families and medical attendants. It’s built to provide the peace and serenity of a rural retreat within the busy city limits of Hong Kong. It’s an escape, of sorts, without leaving the high tech medical amenities of the city. The direct sunlight of this rooftop space guided the architect in developing a park-style environment. The feel of the space is open, with indoor and outdoors areas blending with floor-to-ceiling windows and convertible door walls. The goal of the building was “lean and green”, using steel structures to provide low-impact, lightweight framework. The green elements include green walls and roof spaces that continue the grassy outdoor floor over the top of the structure itself. This makes the look and feel of the SK Yee health center much more natural and peaceful than its environs. It’s a medical facility that feels like a park. It’s a rural retreat in the middle of a metropolis. The SK Yee Healthy Life Center by Ronald Lu and Partners is an excellent example of rooftop conversion architecture. It’s a creative way of turning an unused or unattractive space into a destination of its own, adding more green life to an urban environment that needs such reminders of the nature around it. [via designboom, photography by Kalson Ho]