Old but cool : the selection and installation of appropriate air-conditioning system in heritage buildings

Abstract

The installation of air-conditioning (AC) systems is an unavoidable trend in new adaptive re-use projects. But it is essential for balancing the importance of conserving the heritage merits and providing thermal comfort to the future building users. From the principles mentioned in Burra Charter, the AC add-ons (adaptation) should not affect the cultural significance of the heritages. In the case, the mostly affected merits of the heritage after adaptation are the architectural merits. Thus, it is important to evaluate whether the adaptation affects the architecture merits after add-ons. This dissertation focuses on investigating into the air-conditioning (AC) installations in Hong Kong’s heritage buildings, and the type of heritage buildings to be focused on is the pre-war Tong Lau (pre-World War II Chinese shophouses). An evaluation form will be established for evaluating AC systems newly installed in historic buildings including but not limited to pre-war Tong Lau. The purpose is to set up a methodology for analyzing the effects of installing AC systems to pre-war Tong Lau. The dissertation examines the background information, current conditions of the AC system installed and the performance of AC systems in these three pre-war Tong Lau. The objective of this dissertation is to make evaluation on AC systems of the three mentioned pre-war Tong Lau based on the evaluation form and to set up basic principles for evaluating AC systems in historic buildings.