about 31 acres of steep hillside at Cadogan Street, West Point. Both of these sites are located on Hong Kong Island. In December 1954, an 18 acre site on the mainland, at So Uk, Kowloon, was allocated, and in 1957 the Authority decided that its fourth scheme would be on a 27 acre site at Clearwater Bay Road, Kowloon, to the north of Kai Tak airport.
77. The first two projects, the Java Road scheme (North Point Estate, designed by Eric CUMINE, A.A.Dip., F.R.I.B.A.), and Cadogan Street (Sai Wan Estate, architect T. S. C. FELTHAM, A.R.I.B.A.), have been fully described in previous Annual Reports. They contain 1,955 flats housing 12,500 people at North Point and 638 flats housing 4,200 people at Sai Wan. The North Point Estate has flats of various sizes, with one or more bedrooms separated from the living rooms by per- manent partitions; the Sai Wan scheme uses a simple unit, self- contained, but with a single room which can be subdivided into living-room + bedroom designed for five to ten persons, at an occupancy ratio of 35 sq. ft. per person. North Point proved too ambitious and expensive in its scale of accommodation to suit tenants of the income groups for which the Authority is trying to cater, but it pointed the way to the simpler planning of Sai Wan and subsequent schemes.
78. The So Uk Scheme is an elaborately conceived project, with a master plan prepared by Eric CUMINE, who was also responsible for site formation, followed by a consortium of four architectural firms, working initially under Mr. CUMINE's chairmanship, on the design of sections of the estate. The firms concerned are Messrs. Chau & Lee, Leigh & Orange, W. SZETO and H. S. LUKE, and work on the final stages is now in hand.
79. Development of the Clearwater Bay Road site (Choi Hung Estate) was placed in the hands of Messrs. Palmer & Turner, and construction is in progress, along with ancillary engineering works under the control of the P.W.D.
80. In common with most forms of building in Hong Kong, the Authority uses reinforced concrete built off bamboo scaffolding by local contractors, for its multi-storey developments. Piling is generally required for foundations, whilst at So Uk, for some of the tower blocks, soil stabilization by chemical pressure grouting was carried out. Finish- ings are kept extremely simple and careful site planning is of great importance.
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