Difficulties in achieving open building in the mass housing in Hong Kong and implication of user participation

Abstract

Customisation and open building system have been widely discussed in building technology in the Western discourses. These open building systems have been recommended in a built environment where the buildings are predominantly low rise, detached and less complex. In Hong Kong, the target production of the mass housing due to the growing number of population is 85,000 units annually. These residential units are small in the gross floor area, which are calculated from the prevailing limited and available for the building industries. Most of the mass housing has now reached to a 41 storey high with an average of 50 to 80 sq. m. of gross floor area. The basic configuration of the flats is determined from the households' furniture layout. Therefore, there is a limited option in the flexibility of the residential flat configuration. These are the significant constraints in the mass housing where total open and flexible building design are almost impossible. Due to this reason, there is a lack of user satisfaction arising from a fixed design and lack of flexible option for furniture arrangements. Moreover, to maintain the mass production target and to keep the cost lower, sub-standard quality of the fittings and finishes are used in housing units. As a result, there is growing tendency of the user to remove the finishes and fittings and to replace with the higher quality finishes and fittings. This paper discusses the Hong Kong public housing production processes and their constraints in achieving open building concept. An alternative to the open building is the 'user participation' that reduces, to a degree, the user need-gap. However, a degree of constraint also prevails in the user participation process where opinion of the mass user is a difficult task due to the population size. This paper discusses the need of a new paradigm in the mass housing production in Hong Kong, where an incremental process of the user participation could be introduced to enhance the user satisfaction.