Hong Kong Builder
21
T
COMPACT HOUSE ON A RESTRICTED AREA
The west wall of the living room.
The difficulty of building a home on the island of Hong Kong is well illustrated in the residence which is the subject of this article.
The difficulty referred to involves the tremendous amount of preparatory work required in levelling a suitable area for the house on the precipitous slopes of the hills of which the island is almost entirely composed.
As will be seen from the illustration above, the architect's problem was to set a house upon a very narrow area between Repulse Bay Road and the steep face of the hill which slopes rapidly down to Deepwater Bay.
An experienced architect in Hong Kong soon becomes adept at adjusting his plans to meet the peculiar problems presented by each individual site and, as will be seen in this particular residence, Mr. H. M. Siu, the architect, succeeded in making the best of the limited area available.
The shape of the house adjusts itself to the contours of the ground and resolves itself into a residence in which every living room overlooks the glorious view of Deepwater Bay and is completely open to the sunshine and air which never can be excluded through the erection of any other buildings in any position around it. The sitting and dining rooms have full length sliding French windows which allow the occupants of the house to take full advantage of this fact.
As is usual in a two-storey house, the ground floor contains the reception and living rooms which in this case consists of a large sitting room with windows opening on three sides and a dining room which really forms part of the sitting room, being separated only by a wide arched opening.
The sun porch forms an annex to the sitting room, as the French win- dows separating the two can be folded entirely back out of the way, while in addition a study offers privacy and seclusion when desired.