No_2_July_and_August_and_September__1951 — Page 30

KITAIMING

VALL

HALL

LIVING

LOOM

Photographic detail of west elevation.

TERRACE

a line drawn at an angle of thirty degrees with the horizontal from the top of the cutting.

the

This means that no building, and in this particular case, a house, can have a retaining wall acting as a whole or part of, a wall of any room. Regardless of aspect, natural ventila- tion or any other planning factor, a building on a sloping site, cannot make use of the slope without un- necessary cutting, forced on architect by the terms of the Ordin- ance. What are the objections to a revision of the Ordinance on this point? A retaining wall is built to retain, and is presumably strong enough to do its job; no objection should be raised against using it as a wall. Danger of leaking? There is no difficulty about waterproofing a retaining wall, and to avoid water pressure building up, either channels. can be taken parallel to the wall at the back, or the wall made strong enough to take the extra pressure from water. The limitations imposed on the architect by this section in the Building Ordinance is shown in the two following thumb-nail sketches.

Ground floor plan above, first floor plan below. The large hall leading to the bedrooms is also used as a children's playroom.

BATH

LAV

BED EM

BED ROOM

SER

JER.

CMEWEK

ВАТИ

KITCHEN

BED ROOM

STORE

HALL

FLAT

DINING ROOM

ROOP

HAI

This is, of course, only one of many possibilities but it is enough to show that without the restrictions of Sec- tion 79 there could be many varia- tions in planning, quite apart from the fact that cuttings, which are so hideously obvious all over Hong Kong, would be largely avoided.

In Mr. Tau's house, the whole plan (apart from clients' requirements). was controlled by this section of the

Ordinance, and the peculiar character of the building can be directly attri- buted to it. Working without this limitation, the plan would have been entirely different, yet meeting all other requirements. Because of this limitation and in order to avoid ex- cess cutting and filling, the house was designed with four different levels. The garage is on the lowest level, the living room is above the garage, with the hallway leading to the staircase giving access to the dining room at a higher level, with, finally, a few steps more required to reach the bed-

rooms.

As will be seen from the photo- graphs the house looks somewhat disjointed, but in point of fact it has been very economically designed. Very careful planning was necessary

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with the object of attaining a coales- cence of the separate room units and this was very successfully accom- plished. The various floor spaces form one integral unit, the movement within the house being free and na- tural, with the reception rooms acces- sible from without, and the rest of the building enjoying the privacy which is so essential to the tenant's comfort.

General Contractor:

Yaik Sang

Shanghai

Jardine

Electrical Sub-contractor:

Engineering Corp., Ltd. Plumbing Sub-contractor: Dodwell

& Co., Ltd.

Steel Windows By: Canton Metal

Windows Manufacturing Co. Roofing By: William Jacks & Co.,

Ltd.

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