6. Stephen Lau paper 246. Stephen Lau paper 24.docVIP

A seminar on Ministry of Construction Research Project on High-rise Residential Buildings for Chinese Cities, 2003-2005 Organizer: Architectural Society of China, and University of Hong Kong, 28 – 29 February, 2004, Nanjing, China Recent research initiatives - a response to SARS - for healthy building and healthy cities: Urban heat island, green building, daylight qualities, and building quality assessment scheme for comprehensive private housing developments in Hong Kong Lau, Stephen S.Y., Wang, J.*, Chau, K.W. *, Abstract: High-rise living is a way of life for many Asian cities today. Originating in the developed cities such as Singapore and Hong Kong, the emergence of high-rise living, working, and to a similar extent, community activities have found its acceptance from urban planners, developers, designers and more significantly, urban dwellers in these geographical regions. From cities that have experimented with high-rise living, the author would like to present a post-modem study of the urban characters of Hong Kong, dissecting underlying environmental attributes for the otherwise controversial way of living by European or North American perspectives. The United Nations has in 2001 labelled Hong Kong as a high achiever in the rating of sustainable urban form in terms of resource utilization (land, natural resources, and pollutants). Such labelling attracted those interested in the healthy city research with a mandate to embark on a formal study. On the other hand, the outbreak of SARS epidemic in March 2003 in Hong Kong that has took away about 300 lives prompted local researchers to evaluate and propose improvements to the environmental performance of prevailing urban form. This paper provides a brief introduction to the Hong Kong research undertaken by the author and others to unfold physical attributes of the Hong Kong practice of high-density and high-rise living. Reference is made to on-going building studies, stimulation and assessments of en