Concrete city : conservation of Hong Kong's reinforced concrete buildings

Abstract

Concrete forms an important part of Hong Kong’s building heritage. However, although concrete repair is widely adopted in engineering practice, limited concrete conservation techniques has been discussed in Hong Kong. The reason is that it lacks people who knows concrete as well as knows conservation. To better understand the true significance of Hong Kong’s concrete and reinforced concrete buildings, it is worth to explore the history of the concrete in Hong Kong and to seek the best way to conserve the concrete heritage. This dissertation starts with describing the historical development of concrete and its properties and deterioration. Concrete is a complex material undergoing continuous development. Architects and engineers involved in conservation of historic concrete need to understand the material of the period. Therefore the development of design standard, material manufacture and construction practice of Hong Kong’s concrete technology from its appearance in mid 1800s to mid-1950s are outlined. Followed by the review of the current condition survey and concrete repair technique, 4 number of projects from the “Revitalization Historic Buildings Through Partnership” scheme are studied. The key issue addressed by this dissertation is by reviewing of the current example of adaptive reuse of reinforced concrete buildings, to analysis the structure survey method and concrete repair method. The research about the design standards, materials, techniques and repair to the reinforced concrete buildings serves in preparation to find an appropriate conservation guideline for Hong Kong’s concrete heritage.