Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1959-1960 — Page 23

habits and concepts that pervade most squatter areas. He is taught to make the best of the simple accommodation provided, and to forget his defeatist attitude towards dirt and disease. He is asked, for example, to buy a small covered dustbin, to make himself responsible for cleaning the passageway outside his room, and to use only kerosene for cooking. He is advised to whitewash his room, he is told what form of partition- ing has been found by experience to be most convenient and healthy, and it is made clear that he must not engage in any trade or handicraft which would be a nuisance or a danger to others,

49. Having completed the initial formalities and paid his rent for the first month he and his family then move into his room. Within easy reach on the same floor level there are flush latrines, a washing space with a piped water supply, and bathrooms with cubicles into which he may take a bucket of water and have a bath.

50. Plans of a typical seven-storey resettlement block will be found at Appendix II Drawing No. 1. It will be noted that these blocks are in the shape of the letter H, the crossbar of which accommodates the latrines. The design and construction of these buildings is undertaken by the Public Works Department and the design of the original six- storey experimental buildings at Shek Kip Mei Estate was so successful that very few modifications have been found to be necessary. The most important have been the addition of a seventh storey, and the strength- ening of the flat roof so that it may be used either as public recreation space or for boys' and girls' clubs. Enclosed penthouses have also been added at either end and these are used as primary school classrooms. These schools and the boys' and girls' clubs are run by voluntary agencies.

51. The wings of each building vary from 140 feet to 320 feet in length, depending on the site, and the weight is taken on transverse reinforced concrete walls at ten feet intervals. Each wing is thus divided structurally into a number of bays each measuring about twenty five feet (the full width of each wing) by nine feet six inches, and access is provided by balconies on each floor which run completely round the four sides of cach wing.

52. These 240 square feet bays were, in the first buildings, divided by centre line partitions into rooms of 120 square feet. In September 1956, the experiment was tried in one of the new blocks at Li Cheng Uk of varying the position of this partition wall or of omitting it altogther, in order to produce rooms of four different sizes, and this is now

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