() A Comparative Sustainability Assessment of Hong Kong Standard Housing Blocks and the Integer Tower.
Amato, A.1, Frewer, R.1, Humphrey, S.2, 1 The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China2 Davis Langdon and Seah Management Ltd., Hong Kong, China
ABSTRACT- This study is a comparative assessment of the relative sustainability of three Hong Kong 40-storey residential tower types: a housing authority 'standard' Harmony Block (HAB), a private sector housing block (PSB), and the Integer Concept Tower (ICT) (50-year and 75-year life). The ICT is a demonstration project showing how 40 storeys residential tower might be designed and built in the future enhancing sustainability in Hong Kong. In this study, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) are combined together to measure two of the three accepted environmental aspects of sustainability: economics and environment. Social impacts were excluded because of a present lack of data and established consensus of which social indicators are relevant and the relative weighting between each of these and between the economic and environmental impacts measured. An internationally recognised methodology specially tailored to Hong Kong construction industry, including the South East Asia Region, was devised for this study. The results show that longevity is important and the ICT becomes the best performer over all the indicators in the 75-year life assessment. The presumption here is that it will in reality have a 75-year life because of its intrinsic flexibility of its frame construction, where as the inherent inflexibility of the other two buildings will limit their life spans to just 50 years before they become redundant. The results also show that the operational regime is significant for all buildings. Energy efficiency is clearly important and strategies to reduce demand and increase supply from renewable energy generation sources should be examined. The repair and maintenance regime is also very significant indicating that varying and improving how the building is run and maintained could greatly minimise the overall life cycle impacts. The Integer Concept Tower is definitely worthy of further investigation.
Key words: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Hong Kong, Life Cycle Costing (LCC), Sustainability