Developing a city skyline for Hong Kong using GIS and urban design guidelines

Abstract

Hong Kong is a metropolis with a dense population. The need to cope with rapid population growth under the constraint of limited amounts of developable lands has resulted in a concentrated development of high-rises. Enterprising developers have clearly exploited such behaviors in the urban development of Hong Kong. Buildings have been constructed to maximum heights whenever a height restriction was not specified in the authorization to build, or stretched to their limits sideways if given a height restriction. Both of these situations have given rise to either repetitive and monotonous roofscapes or walls of regimental building flanking the harbor front. The objective of this research is to evaluate and redesign the city skyline of Hong Kong based on Urban Design Guidelines established by the Planning Department. The study makes use of the Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and its 3-dimensional (3D) modeling functions to construct, assess, and analyze the city skyline.