TABLE OF CONTENTS - The Professional Green Building Council

Theme B: Creating a livable, healthy and environmentally viable citieschange in the way that buildings were built, despite the considerable increase inheight of buildings, from 7 to 35 storeys.Construction was very labour intensive with in-situ concrete construction and areliance, to a large extent, upon semi-skilled or unskilled labour. Quality ofconstruction was a major concern because housing production targets wereincreasing and and hence the stock of housing, along with a growing managementand maintenance responsibility. In addition, efficiency, construction waste,working conditions and site safety were also important factors that needed to beaddressed.New initiatives with prefabricated construction techniques had been tried over theyears and by the late 1980’s the HA embarked on a completely new approach forthe design and construction of its residential buildings using modular designconcepts and prefabricated construction techniques. This work started with pre-castconcrete components and was later extended into the fitting out of flats, with dryconstruction lightweight concrete partitions, door assemblies and kitchen fitments.The intention was to reduce wet trades, reduce the reliance on unskilled or semiskilledsite labour and introduce factory production as far as possible. This hasultimately had the benefit of improved construction quality, less waste and cleanerand safer construction sites.Precast elements include facades, staircases, refuse chutes, bay windows, featuresto emphasise the identity of each phase and carpark floor slabs, account forapproximately 30% of concrete works by volume. The contribution of the buildingcontractors and sub-contractors in the development of these techiniques was also amajor factor with over 30 awards on safety, environmental, and constructionmanagement obtained by the contractors during construction period.Prefabrication has been developed more extensively in the last project at the KwaiChung Flatted Factory site, where pre-cast concrete components have made upover 60% of construction volume by also including structural elements. These280