4
Monday, November 6, 1972
SOILS ENGINEERING MUST BE CONSIDERED BY LAND DEVELOPERS
The Director of Public Works, Mr. J.J. Robson, said today it was
evident that, in the light of the June landslides, soils engineers must play
a far greater part in the formation of building sites on hillslopes than in
the past.
He said there is obviously a "pressing need" to apply the latest
techniques and knowledge of soils engineering to the situation in Hong Kong
and to seek a code of practice that will give effective results.
Mr. Robson was speaking at the opening ceremony of the 3rd South-
East Asian Conference on Soils Engineering at the City Hall.
He praised the efforts of the organisers and told the delegates that
"it is essential that your knowledge is made freely available to all civil
engineers, since the pressures of today place increasingly difficult tasks
on the shoulders of the average engineer and now require of him the solution
of problems that were previously only tackled by specialists.'
11
The general quality of these problems, he said, have not changed so
very much with the passage of time, though they have gained daily in
sophistication.
Referring to Hong Kong, Mr. Robson said: "Our problem is made acute
by our very high growth rate and the lack of suitable building land."
This situation necessitates the quick construction of high-rise
buildings utilising every inch of space, he added.
"Unless we pause ....