ON-SITE PREFABRICATION
THE TILT-UP METHOD
LONG KONG'S first move into the
H field of industrialised building is being taken through the enterprise of the Goodman Co. and the encourage- ment of the Hong Kong Housing Authority.
It takes the form of a pilot scheme comprising one L-shaped seven-storey block of low cost apartments, This
IN
being built for the Authority on a cost-plus basis by Hong Kong Tilt- Up Lid., a new company formed by Goodman in association with the Taisei Construction Co., Ltd., of Japan.
Taisei are the developers of an industrialised building system known as Tilt-Up which involves large panel construction and is similar in many respects to some systems being used in Europe.
Two questions immediately arise. First: How is it that the Housing Authority should embark on such a project when the Government's
Public Works
Department, whose vast programme for low-cost resettle- ment housing would surely provide a better outlet for system building. are not at present pursuing any research into industrialised methods? Secondly: Why the Tilt-Up system?
Training
The answers
In 1962 Goodman first paragraph. acquired the Hong Kong licence for building by the Tilt-Up system. The company has been fairly successful in recent years in tendering for con- ventional Housing Authority and Government resettlement housing and as a possible means of furthering this success it sought a way to try out the system in Hong Kong in order to train site personnel and to obtain cost and speed comparisons with in situ methods.
are provided in the
Having completed phase II of the
Housing Authority's Fuk Loi estate, Tsuen Wan, the company offered to build phase Ha of the project by the Tilt-Up method. The offer entailed a cost-plus contract, but with a ceiling figure of HK$1,206,000, which was the approximate cost of an almost identical block in phase II.
The Authority accepted the offer and a cost-plus contract
rare in Hong Kong was drawn up by the quantity surveyors. Langdon and Every (Far East). In order to com- pare the actual cost of the traditional method and the industrialised system. the quantity surveyors have prepared a schedule of prices and are being supplied with all information on costs of operating the necessary plant.
The activities and experience on site are being documented by the Au- thority in detail for future reference by themselves and the Public Works Department, and the site progress is being closely watched. From the
Fuk Loi site: Wall panels in position at third floor level and partially completed fourth floor slab.
Far East Architect & Builder August, 1966
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