Conservation + development: a study of designcriteria for the adaptive reuse of post-war tong lau

Abstract

Urban development in Hong Kong is often regarded as demolition of aged buildings and re-building a massive volume building on the same lot.

Heritage in the past decade has been a hot topic in the public and the media. A lot of heritage with values were not being graded or protected by the Hong Kong Government. In spite of this, some of the heritage were conserved accidently.

The dissertation will investigate examples when conservation and development come together, in a form of case studies on current examples of adaptive reuse of Post-war Tong Lau in Hong Kong. When heritage and urban development come together, which seems to be contradicting, in fact, could be converged into a new approach of financially viable form of urban development.

The key issue addressed by this dissertation is by observation and review of the current examples of adaptive reuse of Post-war Tong Lau, to analysis the design criteria and guideline for the Adaptive Reuse of Post-war Tong Lau as an alternative choice for the developers for future property development, and at the same time could contribute to the conservation in Hong Kong.