The Making of Hong Kong – From Vertical to Volumetric
The Making of Hong Kong: From Vertical to Volumetric examines one of the most compact cities and sustainable cities in the world. Hong Kong’s irregular coastline and steep terrain has resulted in built-up areas that are compact, rich in spatial experience, close to hills and water and connected by an exceptional public transport system.
The three authors – the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning’s Associate Professors of Urban Design Barrie Shelton and Justyna Karakiewicz and Dean, Professor Thomas Kvan - see value in these conditions: a metropolis with a small urban footprint, 90 per cent use of public transport for vehicular journeys and proximity to nature.
The book traces the evolution of Hong Kong’s intense urbanism from the region’s pre-colonial walled settlements and colonial shop-houses to the contemporary vertical and volumetric metropolis of towers, podia, decks, bridges, escalators and other components of multi-level living. On a site with an acute lack of flat land, Hong Kong is portrayed as an accidental pioneer of a new kind of urbanism – a city of multiple grounds that invites wider attention. 
“In urban design, most influential models and literature have come out of Europe and America,” says Shelton. “It is time to look more seriously at Asian models in our search for urban solutions, and direct more attention to urban structure and typologies than individual glamour projects in that region. That’s what we are doing in our research.”
This fascinating book, with over 200 illustrations, adds to the current urban debate around high density compact cities and interconnected public transport systems as one means of reducing urban energy use and carbon emissions. The writers explain why higher densities are vital for more than ecological reasons – including changing demographic structure, economic organisation and associated lifestyles.
The Making of Hong Kong: From Vertical to Volumetric, published by Routledge, will be launched by Professor Glyn Davis, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne on Monday 28 February at 5.30pm in the Atrium, Architecture Building.
For further details on The Making of Hong Kong and how to purchase the book please visit: http://www.makingofhk.com/makingofhk.swf.
Please RSVP by Monday 21 February 2011 to abp-events (@unimelb.edu.au), or 9035 4526.