Built Form :: Architecture is the first thing people notice in a city, even if they don’t realize it.

• A large part of Hong Kong is made up of rather nondescript, 10-20 storey tall tenement blocks that are often dirty and discoloured.
• Besides that, there are many examples of excellent planning in the city. Every space is used to the fullest, and places that would be ignored in North America are often turned into gardens or sculptural features.
• There is almost no historically significant buildings left, having been taken over by new development. Luckily, most new development of high quality; though to have real character, it is beneficial for a city to have some historic elements.
• The bottom line is, Hong Kong is the capital of glittering towers of glass and steel!

Since a picture is worth a thousand words when it comes to architecture, we will take a look at the different styles of building in Hong Kong through a gallery. If you would like to know where a picture was taken from, feel free to ask in the comments. Enjoy!

Modern :: Much attention is paid to the lower levels of important buildings to create lively public spaces.

Glass :: The material of choice for the newest generation of office towers is glass (residential buildings often have ceramic tile cladding).

Historic :: Although these are far and few between, the historic buildings that survive are beautifully preserved.

Beach :: “Expat” areas near beaches are lined with opulent and spectacular condominium towers and low-rise beach houses.

Tenement :: People are crammed into tiny apartments in these apartment blocks, which cover many areas of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is the ultimate urban machine. Each part is carefully placed and tuned so that the entire system can run at high speed, 24/7, it has to be! The lights in this city are never out; people work early in the morning until late into the evening, while shopping areas are packed with people during the midday and evening hours, and entertainment districts keep the late night and early morning hours busy.

Every inch of this city is used up as well, and almost always with more than one floor. There are some areas downtown where you feel like you’re in one of those sci-fi cities of the future, the ones where neighborhoods are classified in vertical levels. There are good and bad things about a city this dense, as well as some important lessons to learn about it.

Mass Transit and Road Networks :: If the roads are the arteries of Hong Kong, the busses are its blood cells

• City bus service is excellent, with a number of bus companies running a range of vehicles, from huge double deck buses to smaller van sized vehicles. A single double decker bus can fit a huge number of people inside, and they usually come at most every ten minutes!
• Most major buildings have large bus terminals in the basement.
• Hong Kong subways are clean, frequent, and very well designed. The system has an excellent interlining system, so when you get off at a station to transfer to another line, you usually just have to walk across the platform to get on the train to where you want to go.
• Subways are the gateway to a true world-class city!
• Roads are very well designed and generally move smoothly. Flyovers and elevated highways are a common and necessary part of the transportation infrastructure.
• Toronto could learn from the use of space below elevated highways in Hong Kong — most of them stand elegantly on a wide central pier, and have sculptural dividers or even gas stations below them.

One of the biggest positives about a dense city like Hong Kong is the constant availability of mass transit. However, density comes with costs; such as a lack of historic building stock, and a level of overcrowding that can become tiresome for a North American.

A few weeks ago, I embarked on a trip halfway around the world to visit the city of Hong Kong, which is a major world city. It was especially significant because my girlfriend Seychelle and her family are from there. It was a great experience, and it has definitely changed my views about how cities should be planned.

Hong Kong is rarely what you imagined, and nothing like you see in the pictures. It is extremely, almost inconceivably, different from anything you’ve ever seen in North America or Europe. It is simply the ultimate urban machine.

My first experiences of the city was rather surreal. We took a bus from the airport, traveling through many different environments. The first was the highway between the mountains and coast of Lantau Island, which is relatively undeveloped compared to Hong Kong Island. You can refer to the map below if you’re not sure where it is.

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Port Facilities in Hong Kong

Wet market in Kennedy Town

A shantytown

Seychelle’s apartment complex

Next we passed through outer Kowloon, and the absolutely massive port facilities of Hong Kong. For a Canadian context, it handles 14 times more container shipping than the Port of Vancouver! Warehouses in this port are 15 storeys high. The area is a mess of highways, with apartment complexes fit into the remaining spaces. The highway took us past the International Commerce Centre and into the western harbour tunnel.

We emerged into what seemed to be a completely different city, the Kennedy Town district of Hong Kong Island. Kennedy Town is filled wall to wall with apartment towers, their bases lined with small shops. The shops are arranged like a mom-and-pop store would be in Canada, except they are very open to the street. I was actually shocked at the dirtiness of the area though; many buildings appear to have undergone little to no maintenance since they were built.

Along the way around the eastern edge of Hong Kong Island, we passed through several different areas. The rich often live in very large residential developments, which can be located right next to very poor areas. [picture of slums]

At the end of our journey, we arrived at Seychelle’s apartment complex. It consists of 32 towers, each between 30 and 40 storeys high. That may sound crazy, but that sort of development is everywhere in Hong Kong!  The complex is extremely well planned out, however, with lush greenery, waterfront promenades, and a shopping centre, and ample transit access.

Then, jet lag set in and it was time to sleep! The story continues though, so stay tuned!