Biophilic estate : public housing as landscape infrastructure to reformulate the urban fringe

Abstract

Over two-thirds of Hong Kong’s population lives in public housing, which dates back to the 1950’s. It is a major component of housing in Hong Kong, and all of them is mainly built by the Hong Kong Housing Authority and the Hong Kong Housing Society. Since the 1970’s, public housing estates were initially built in the inner city and throughout time, the government has expanded the urban residential areas in the new towns of the New-Territories. They can be found in every district of Hong Kong, except the old Wan Chai district. Hong Kong’s public housing policy has, for most of its history, been linked to strategies to regenerate and decentralize urban Hong Kong. In recent decades, public housing, embodying new paradigms of “living in nature” would often be coordinated with larger green and environmental policies. This thesis focuses on the urban fringe, where urban and nature meet, and where new housing developments are often located. Historically, the focus would always be on developing the urban side of the fringe, while leaving the landscapes of the fringes neglected and degraded. This thesis proposes that public housing sites located at the urban fringe, which often became destructive to the natural topography of Hong Kong, can now become the sites in which landscapes are reasserted, reconstructed, and reconnected. By providing a better connection between urban and nature, my thesis aims to demonstrate that public housing development in parallel with the implementation of landscape infrastructure strategies can enhance the sustainability and biodiversity at the urban fringe.