No_4_December_1963 — Page 129

YIP FUNG BUILDING MARKS SPREAD OF OFFICE AREA

Architect: E. Y. Wu

The D'Aguilar Street frontage of ▸ Yip Fung building.

YPICAL of the redevelopment

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trend in side streets running off Central District - Hong Kong's over. crowded business centre will be the Yip Fung Building. a 10-storey office block in D'Aguilar Street (I.L. 18).

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Situated next to another big re- development project. King's Theatre, Yip Fung Building will provide a total of about 100 offices, ranging in size from 1.000 to 400 square feet.

Total floor area of the original buildings on the site was 23,000 square feet. The new block will have a floor area of 64,000 square feet- a threefold increase that will help ease the pressure for space in the business centre, which is sandwiched into a few hundred yards between the sea and abruptly rising hills and bounded to both ends by sprawling "old" Hong Kong.

Yip Fung Building, the planned Winner Building and several other new or proposed buildings will con- vert D'Aguilar Street, a once out of the way sidestreet. and surrounding lanes, into a modern commercial area.

This, and similar developments in other "forgotten streets", would not have been possible without new building regulations permitting higher buildings in narrow streets. The regulations came into force late last year.

Yip Fung Building is being built on a site formerly occupied by nine. three-storey houses in D'Aguilar Street and three, three-storey houses in Ho Kwok Lane. The houses were all more than 50 years old, and in poor condition.

In a report to the Tenancy Tribunal it was pointed out that there were no sanitary facilities in the premises. Hloorboards were rotten, roofs leaked

THE HONG KONG & FAR EAST BUILDER--VOLUME 18, NUMBER 4

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