A comparative study of the specification preliminaries of two adaptivereuse projects in Hong Kong: Hon Wah Collegeand old Tai O Police Station

Abstract

“The great buildings of the past do to not belong to us only; they have belonged to our forefathers and will belong to our descendents unless we play them false.” William Morris (1834-1896) Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings 1875

Sustainable development has become a goal of the society in recent years. By creating a healthy and sustainable built environment, the distinctiveness and the character of the society can be maintained and strengthened. Conservation of the historic building has obvious relevance to this objective because, by definition, it conserves existing assets and can facilitate its adaptation to new uses. Adaptive reuse is a process to bring the historic building again into activity so as to achieve sustainability.

During an adaptive reuse process, building professionals like Quantity Surveyors will usually get involved and contribute their professional knowledge into the adaptive reuse project so as to smooth away the obstacles encountered during the conservation process as early as possible.

One of the ways to streamline the adaptive reuse project is to reduce claims from Contractor at construction stage by a well-prepared and well-written set of specification preliminaries. A standard set for specification preliminaries for adaptive reuse project not only helps in reducing claims but also is a useful tool for Quantity Surveyors to strengthen their professionalism and knowledge in the field of conservation.

The research for my dissertation focuses on the specification preliminaries of the tender documents of the adaptive reuse projects in Hong Kong. The projects studied will be Old Tai O Police Station (historic building) and Hon Wah College in Kennedy Town (non-historic building). By comparing the similarities and differences of the specification preliminaries between these two projects, the difficulties and problems encountered in a heritage project can be identified (if any) and whether the standardization of specification preliminaries clauses for heritage projects is possible can be determined.