Architecture's negotiating capacity : investigating the interface between high-performance building envelopes and planning standards in Hong Kong

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate that high-performance building envelopes can improve both the ventilation of urban space and the revenue of real estate industry, and will investigate how such improvements can be used to negotiate between objective and regulation in planning standards. Building on the observations made by architecture and other related disciplines, that planning standards often fail to meet their own objectives, this paper addresses a research site with a small public open space in Mong Kok, Hong Kong, to contextualize design research at the interface between high-performance building envelopes and planning standards. Escalating property values catalyse high redevelopment pressure in Mong Kok. Due to amended planning standards, architecture in the vicinity is successively replaced by grander development. If the building mass is maximized in concurrence with amended planning standards, it will obstruct the climatological conditions of light and ventilation, and thus diminish the performance of the small public open space, which produces a socio-economic conflict between public good and real estate interests. To mediate the conflict, this paper will show that negotiations between high-performance building envelope and zoning envelope can both improve the performance of small public open space, and accommodate the amplified turn-over rate on land coverage.