The Deputy Director (Development and Construction) of the Housing Department Ms Ada Fung delivered a keynote speech to around 600 construction industry stakeholders at the Construction Safety Forum jointly organised by the Labour Department and the Occupational Safety and Health Council. Her speech, entitled “Dedicated to Inculcating Safety Culture – The Housing Authority’s (HA’s) Holistic Approach to Works Management System”, introduced how the HA’s holistic approach to the works management system had helped foster a safety culture.

Held earlier at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, the forum aimed to promote site safety among all industry stakeholders. After the speeches, three workshops were run on the subjects of “Site Management and Supervision”, “Safety Awareness and Responsibilities of Workers and Site Foremen” and “Safety Management System”, to solicit stakeholders’ views on practical ways to further enhance site safety.

In March last year, the Comprehensive Redevelopment Programme of Upper Ngau Tau Kok Estate Phases 2 & 3 (UNTK 2 & 3) under the Housing Authority (HA) was granted the highest honour, the Three-Star Certificate of Green Building Design Label at the Seventh International Conference on Green and Energy-Efficient Building and New Technologies and Products Expo held in Beijing. It was the first project from Hong Kong to receive that highest grading. Its project team has also recently won an award in the HA Extra Mile Plan 2010/11. Members of the team -- Chief Architect Rosa Ho, Senior Architect Stephen Yim, Architects Anissa Wong, Dominic Wong, Ellen Ngan, Structural Engineer Nandi Ip, Building Services Engineer T S Chan and Landscape Architect Tracy Lam were invited to share their experiences with Housing Dimensions. During our conversation, they discussed how they went that extra mile to establish the leading local standard in the Chinese Green Building Evaluation Label and its successful application in UNTK 2 & 3.

UNTK 2 & 3 has received nine international and local awards in the past few years (for details, please see Housing Dimensions, 23 March). Rosa Ho, head of the project team, said this success was not due to luck. Rather it was due to the concerted efforts of the project team, and particularly the devotion and quick mind of each and every member. “The purpose of green building design is to minimise the impact on and destruction of the environment and to provide a greener and improved living environment for tenants. Looking forward, green building design will continue to be our major goal. We also hope that the success of UNTK 2 & 3 will encourage our industry partners to participate in the construction of greener buildings," she remarked.

Stephen Yim, who helped to establish the Hong Kong version of the "Evaluation Standard for Green Buildings" briefly introduced the work of the China Green Building Council (CGBC). He said, "Aiming to promote the development of green buildings in China, the CGBC was established in March 2008. The Hong Kong Council was established in May 2010 and the Hong Kong version of the Label was compiled in November 2010. "Sharing his preparations for the assessment, he continued, "We had to prepare all UNTK 2 & 3 documents and send them to the CGBC in Beijing within a two-month period. We were participating in a very time-restricted event."

Up to the end of 2010, there were only 34 projects which have managed to secure the Three-Star rating standard among the 104 projects submitted from different provinces throughout China. Competition standards have been set at a very high level. Stephen explained, “The assessment criteria included Control Items, General Items and Excellence Options. The main focus was to achieve ‘four savings and one environmental protection measure’. This translated into the saving of land resources, energy, water and materials, together with ‘indoor environmental quality’ procedures.” As far back as 2003, when we first designed UNTK 2 & 3, we introduced the rainwater harvesting system for irrigating plants and the plant nursery on the estate. Commencing as a pilot project, this harvesting system achieved such satisfactory results that in recent years, it has been incorporated into newly constructed public housing estates at their planning stages. Although the system in UNTK 2 & 3 is relatively small in scale, it has played an important role as a pioneer and inspired the subsequent development and implementation of the system.”

Winning the award is not simply about getting the approbation of the panel of professional judges for the work done. More importantly, it reaffirms the core spirit of the HA to go that extra mile, while also highlighting the team’s willingness to work hard and put tenants first, which have helped to make UNTK 2 & 3 such a success. UNTK Estate was designated as the reception estate for tenants of Lower Ngau Tau Kok (LNTK) (II) Estate. Dominic Wong said, “To understand residents’ needs, more than 50 meetings, workshops and briefing sessions were organised between 2003 and 2008 for the tenants, district councils and concern groups. To make sure participants could attend these consultation meetings, they were usually held in the evening. We met tenants outside our normal working hours to understand their needs and expectations.”

To better understand the requirements of the Certificate of Green Building Design Label, Ellen Ngan paid a special visit to Beijing to receive training in September 2010. Upon her return to Hong Kong, she had to quickly discuss with team members of different disciplines on details of the assessment criteria and plan on how best to prepare the report. Ellen also had to translate UNTK 2 & 3 documents into Chinese as most of the originals were in English. Since the report included many professional architectural terms which are peculiar to China and as there were large numbers of documents related to the assessment, the translation and report preparation had Ellen working long into many nights.

Tracy Lam who was responsible for the landscape design said, “The green ratio for the Label required there be no less than three trees for every 100 square metres of open space. We had to count all the plants, look up their Chinese names and categorise them, in addition to also determining how many trees there were throughout the estate.”

Anissa Wong’s main task was to work in coordination with site contractors to retrieve all relevant information on the environmental protection measures implemented during the construction period, including the control of dust, noise, light nuisance, air and water pollution, as well as site cleanliness and recycling of construction materials. From the experience gained from the Hong Kong Building Enviromental Assessment Method (HKBEAM), she was able to apply her professional knowledge and assist the team with relevant information.

Responsible for building services, T S Chan took care of the required standards. He explained, “As the water, electricity and gas standards required in China are different from Hong Kong, we had to further elaborate in the report. For example, the lighting design in public areas of Hong Kong’s public housing estates have to fulfill the minimum requirement for barrier-free design, whereas uses of motion sensors for lighting on/off control are allowed in China. Through UNTK 2 & 3, we have applied design standards that comply with various Hong Kong standards and statutory requirements – this not only gave the China Committee of Green Building Design Label a reference, it also established the standard that fits readily into the Hong Kong situation.”

From the materials saving and recycling aspect, Nandi Ip pointed out, “We had to dig out reference information regarding building demolition and material recycling. Some of the documents have been filed away for years. The demolition of UNTK 2 & 3 was completed in early 2004 and it was no easy task to find all the necessary information within such a short time. Luckily as UNTK’s demolition practices were similar to those of LNTK, we were able to make use of the information from LNTK as a reference to demonstrate that the recycling of materials is a normal HA demolition practice, and that the same had been adopted for the demolition of UNTK.”

The successful compilation of the report within the short period of two months and the honours obtained can be attributed to the joint and committed efforts of the entire team.