No_4_November_and_December__1952 — Page 37

SOUTH BAY ROAD RESIDENCE

B

UILDING in Hong Kong is always a tricky business. If it is on levelled ground there are all sorts of structural conditions to con- tend with, particularly as a good proportion of level ground is along the sea front and is now city area where most of the principal buildings are situated. Reclamation work has extended to such a distance out to

Photograph of building from Repulse Bay.

the sea and over such a long period of time that the excavation work for the foundations of new buildings, especially at the depths required for the high and modern buildings now being erected, has more the resem- blance to archaeological exploration than that of a construction job.

On the other hand, to design a house that will perch on the slope,

View of the living room.

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or stand on the top, of the high hills that are a typical condition in Hong Kong, taxes an architect's skill and ingenuity to the utmost. In some cases the easiest, and possibly the best thing to do is to cut into the hillside and fill in behind the re- taining wall at the front part of the site, and place the house-an ordinary design of house - on top of this site formation work. Quite frequently, however, the architect is confronted with conditions that do not permit of such an easy solution.

Such has been the case in the development of R.B.L. 438. The site is on South Bay Road just beyond Repulse Bay, at a point where the road runs fairly close to, yet considerably above, the seashore. The shallowness of the site between the road and the beach, and the extreme steepness of the slope would not permit of a high retaining wall in front of the building, and its proximity to the water and the con- venience of having private swimming facilities immediately below the house required exceptional treatment to bring the best out of this beauti- ful location.

The architect's solution is a build- ing which fits naturally on to the contours of the land and rises gracefully and logically from the beach in terraced tiers which form a picture of grace and unity. Further-