Sustainable Engineering Design for Public Housing
Daniel Kong
Sustainable Engineering Design for Public Housing
| With a population of 7 million and an area of just over 1,000 km2, Hong Kong has always been facing a housing problem. Property prices are sky-high, which leave nearly half of the population unable to afford owning a property. In view of this problem, the Hong Kong government has been building large scale public housing estates and leasing them out at bargain prices. As public rental housing (PRH) evolves from 7-storey concrete blocks to modern high-rise buildings, there is a potential to provide sustainable accommodation to one-third of the population in Hong Kong. In this research paper, the focus will be on investigating the potential to implement sustainable building designs to PRH in Hong Kong. As a result, part of the studies will be determining the general trends concerning PRH developments in Hong Kong, and the relevant sustainable development indicators. Various different aspects are then compared, drawing information from 5 PRH estates built in different decades, as well as a number of relevant professional bodies, in terms of 6 categories of sustainability in residential building design. The results are then analysed with reference to a range of professional papers, and conclusions are drawn to provide useful insights in contributing the establishment of new holistic sustainable PRH building design guidelines. |
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